


Mondo's Room

by Misos



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Silent Hill
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Dark Comedy, Illustrated, M/M, inconsistent tone, will be finished someday
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-08 15:38:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1946703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misos/pseuds/Misos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one was particularly surprised when Ishimaru did not come down for breakfast the morning after the second trial, but they would likely have been highly surprised had they known the true reason why...<br/>Loosely follows the events of Silent Hill 4: The Room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Room

**Author's Note:**

> This should hopefully be comprehensible even if one has not played Silent Hill 4, although one might miss a few jokes.
> 
> (3/20/2015: Since I'm currently in the midst of a particularly bad bout of writer's block and I need to practice my drawing, I shall be adding illustrations to the story for a while instead of updating. I hope that adds some entertainment value.)
> 
> (9/30/2015: You can see, or will see when I'm done redrawing/uploading/organizing, all the pictures from the story, plus maybe extra things eventually, [here](http://misos13.deviantart.com/gallery/56250559/Mondo-s-Room).)
> 
> (10/2/2015: I finally decided to up the rating to M for violence/gore. Probably should have been M from the start.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (9/30/2015: I updated the picture. I disliked the way it looked before.)

Kiyotaka Ishimaru awoke that morning in Mondo Owada’s bed. Now, if you knew Kiyotaka, you would have a hard time seeing how this could make him even remotely miserable, but, suffice it to say, he was. Extremely miserable, in fact. He had just had a nightmare, if it could even be called that. In truth, he rather wished that he could have stayed in the nightmare. He didn’t much mind the idea of ghosts coming through the wall. Actually, he would have liked nothing more than to see a ghost come through the wall at that very moment. Well, one particular ghost, at least.

Kiyotaka stared forlornly at the garish magenta wallpaper, hoping desperately that something supernatural would occur. It did, for, just then, a voice crackled over the speakers:

“Help…me…” It was definitely not Monokuma. It was hard to make out, and muffled by static, but it was a soft and androgynous-sounding.

Soft and and androgynous-sounding. Well, there went Kiyotaka’s interest. There was only one ghostly voice he cared to hear, and it could be described in no such terms. As his eyes traveled sadly around the room, he caught sight of something so unexpected that it might also be described as supernatural. It was a page from a book, lying on the floor. Mondo had been so dashingly uncultured and thuggish. Books were poison to him.

Kiyotaka gave the page a very nasty look for trying to taint his perception of Mondo with such intellectualism. He bent down to give it a thorough glower, narrowing his thick black eyebrows beyond what was humanly possible. He had the sudden urge to read it. Perhaps, through it, he could learn something about Mondo. He wondered if that made him a stalker. No, he concluded, he would only be a stalker if Mondo was still alive. This was just mourning, and perfectly acceptable human behavior. And so, he read the page.

Kiyotaka tried. He honestly tried. But, somehow, he could make no connection between anything the page said and Mondo. It had all been nonsense about rituals and spirits and abominations. He wondered if maybe he had wandered into Yasuhiro’s room by mistake. But, no, there was “BIKER GANG” in large print on the wall. Perhaps Yasuhiro had given Mondo some ancient tome of nonsense and Mondo had torn it to pieces and left this piece on the floor? Yes, that sounded very much like a thing that would happen.

Something in Kiyotaka’s mind clicked, and all the thoughts he had been having for the past five minutes came together. Of course! He had wanted to talk to ghosts, and surely Yasuhiro knew all about ghosts! Perhaps he could perform some sort of invocation ritual, and–

Kiyotaka’s train of thought was cut short when he saw the door that he had been just about to head out of. Thick, heavy chains ran across it haphazardly, nailed firmly to the walls in several places. Ominous-looking padlocks hung from the chains, and moving closer, he saw that there was no place to input a combination or a key. He also saw a message, scribbled in bright pink above the now-useless doorknob:

_Don’t go out!!_

_Kiyondo_

Kiyotaka frowned at this. He had never understood the point of using more than one exclamation point in a row. It always looked highly unprofessional. If it had been anywhere near the physical realm of possibility, Kiyotaka would have “gone out” just to spite this “Kiyondo” person, who, to make matters worse, also had appalling handwriting. He had to admit, though, despite all his penmanship-related faults, this person had quite a nice name. Something about it made Kiyotaka feel very warm and fuzzy inside. It was a happy name, he concluded.

There was also a piece of paper slid under the door. Perhaps Makoto or somebody had left it for him to ask if he was all right. Or perhaps Hifumi or somebody had left it for him as part of an insidious plot to murder him.

It was neither. It simply read: “Mondo, why don’t u wake up?” in the same atrocious handwriting as the message on the door. Kiyotaka spent a good deal of time being consumed with righteous anger at the “u” before he noticed what the note actually said. It was highly emotionally distressing. Who could have written it? What did it mean?

He did not have much time to ponder these things before a loud crash coming from the direction of the bathroom–well, _Mondo’s_ bathroom, really–made him jump a foot in the air. Naturally, this was the sort of thing that he had to investigate, and when he stepped into the bathroom, he was very surprised to see a large hole in the wall.

Kiyotaka took a step towards it cautiously. What did this mean? Could Mondo have done this? Punching holes in walls _did_ sound like something he would do. But then, what was that crash? As Kiyotaka reached a hand into the hole to see if it led anywhere in particular, he brushed against a steel pipe, presumably part of the plumbing, which proceeded to fall to the floor with a distinct thud.

Kiyotaka leapt backwards, horrified. He had just destroyed the infrastructure of Hope’s Peak Academy! He was a vandal! Monokuma was probably going to– He stopped. _Monokuma_. He bent down to pick up the pipe, and his pale fingers closed tightly around it. The hole, he noticed, seemed to go on into darkness for quite a ways. That was good. Maybe it lead to the headmaster’s room.

Kiyotaka crawled into the hole, still gripping the steel pipe. He had a bear to bludgeon.


	2. The Subway (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid it may take some time for Mondo to make a formal appearance, but in the meantime, he will most definitely be mentioned.

“What…the…heck…?” Kiyotaka found himself suddenly fond of ellipses, but no one could blame him, given what he was faced with. He had just been crawling through a hole five seconds ago, bloodthirsty thoughts about robotic bears flooding his mind, and now he was sitting down on an escalator. He hurriedly stood up. Who _sat_ on escalators? Who took escalators at all, for that matter? They were for lazy people who couldn’t even be bothered to use the stairs.

He jumped off the instant it got to the ground, and looked around him. This was, if he was not mistaken, a subway station. That was strange. What was even stranger was that it was apparently abandoned, judging by the lack of people he ran across as he continued to walk. This was a highly surreal experience. Perhaps, he thought hopefully, it was some sort of purgatory, and he was actually dead.

He turned a corner, and there, standing in front of him, was some definite proof for his theory. “Chihiro?!” he gasped.

The boy turned, and it was indeed Chihiro. “Taka? Are you here, too?”

“This is the afterlife, isn’t it?!” Kiyotaka said frantically. “Where’s Mondo?!”

“Afterlife?” Chihiro asked blankly. “I’m sorry…I don’t know what you mean… We’re not dead, are we? I mean…I don’t remember dying. And…I haven’t seen anyone else here. I think…” He looked thoughtful. “I think maybe this is a dream I’m having. Or…or you’re having it. Either way, please try to stay calm. I’m sure we’ll wake up soon.”

“…A dream?” Kiyotaka frowned. “Can dead people dream?”

“I just said that we _aren’t_ dead,” Chihiro pointed out.

“But that _can’t_ be true!” Kiyotaka said anxiously. “I saw your dead body!”

“…Maybe that was another dream?”

Kiyotaka doubted this very much, but Chihiro was beginning to look rather nervous, so he decided to hold his tongue for the time being.

“We should probably try to find a way out of here, just in case this isn’t a dream,” said Chihiro. “Will you come with me?”

“Certainly,” replied Kiyotaka. “And you’re absolutely certain that you have seen no sign whatsoever of Mondo?”

“Um, I’m pretty sure.” Chihiro looked at him. “Do you think he’d be here?”

“I don’t know,” Kiyotaka admitted. They had begun to walk down the empty halls at this point. A silence fell, as neither had much in common beyond a fondness for Mondo, whom Kiyotaka didn’t feel like talking about at the moment, anyway.

Chihiro provided a topic by suddenly turning very green. “Excuse me…I feel sick,” he squeaked, and darted swiftly into a conveniently nearby restroom. Kiyotaka observed which, but had no opinion on the matter and so refused to dwell on it. He decided that it would be polite to wait for Chihiro to exit, and so he stood there for a while, pondering the oddness of the situation.

Things got odder when the door to the restroom Chihiro had _not_ entered swung open and the rotting corpse of a dog flew out. Yes, that was, Kiyotaka concluded, extremely odd. But that wasn’t all; it was shortly followed by a pair of very much alive dogs who bore a striking resemblance to rotting corpses. They proceeded to lick the corpse with improbably long tongues.

Kiyotaka took this as his cue to leave, and so rushed into the restroom Chihiro had entered, to make sure that he wasn’t currently being eaten alive or something. This action of his may or may not have been mildly inappropriate and something he ordinarily never would have done if there hadn’t been zombie dogs involved.

Chihiro was nowhere to be found. The restroom was, in fact, entirely deserted. There was a large and prominent hole in the wall, surrounded by strange symbols. Had Mondo done _this_ , too? Was he on some sort of epic quest to knock holes in every bathroom wall on the planet? Kiyotaka concluded that the only way to find this out was to enter the hole, and so he did.

– – –

Kiyotaka awoke in Mondo’s bed again. He looked around hopefully, but, no, this was an as improbably tragic experience as ever. It seemed that only the thing about holes in walls had been a dream, not the entire last few days. Unfortunately. Well, he supposed that he _should_ go and talk to Yasuhiro. That had been a good idea.

The door was still chained up. Well, that was very strange. Had it not been a dream, then? He thought to go and check the bathroom, but then he caught sight of yet _another_ hole in the wall, this time directly opposite Mondo’s bed. It was a good deal smaller than the others, too small to be crawled through. He noted by the position that it would lead directly to his own room.

This was all getting rather silly, he thought, as he knelt down by the hole to see if it perforated the entire wall. It did. He could see right into his own room, noting the pie chart documenting– His heart leapt in his throat. No, this was _too_ ridiculous.

_Mondo_ was _in his room_. What. How. He was breathing and everything, and looking highly baffled. Kiyotaka could even hear him muttering various inquisitive expletives. His heart pounding, Kiyotaka tried to call out to him, but Mondo seemed unable to hear. This was insane.

Kiyotaka likely would have stayed there all day being creepy, but, just then, a voice came over the speakers again. It was definitely Chihiro’s voice: “...Where did you go...? ...Hurry... Save me…”

Well. This was inexplicable. Kiyotaka cast one last glance at Mondo, who still looked confused, before standing up and entering the bathroom. Yes, the hole was still there. So…had _none_ of it been a dream? He sure _hoped_ it hadn’t. Whatever was going on, it seemed to involve Mondo not being entirely dead, and that was just fine with him. He supposed he had to go rescue Chihiro now. Perhaps he was being attacked by those dogs. Kiyotaka noted that he still had the steel pipe with him, so he was armed. Feeling very perplexed, he crawled through the hole again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Mondo is Eileen. Yes, Chihiro is Cynthia. This may seem downright bizarre, but there is some logic behind it. Unfortunately, Mondo won't be wearing a party dress. Probably.


	3. The Subway (Part Two)

Kiyotaka jumped about fifty feet when he got through to the other side. He was still in the subway restroom, and he was faced with a very lifelike mannequin. It looked an awful lot like Chihiro, and its hands were bright pink. Who could have put _this_ here? What was it even supposed to _mean_?

Unsettled, Kiyotaka exited the restroom and looked around. The dogs were still there. He tried to sneak around them, and was surprised when he succeeded. He began to wander down the hall, only to catch sight of even more dogs. Running, he concluded, was the best option here. Luckily, Kiyotaka was good at running. You had to be, to be a hall monitor. He saw some stairs, and decided that was a good way to lose the dogs.

He lost the dogs. That was the good news. The bad news was that what could only be described as a ghost emerged from the wall and turned to glare at him. It appeared to be a teenage female ghost, but that made it no less terrifying. Another similar ghost came from the wall to join the first. There was another set of stairs leading further down, and he did not hesitate to take them. This was becoming alarming very fast.

This floor, he noted, actually contained a subway. Well, that made sense. It was, after all, a subway station.

“Hey, Taka!” Chihiro’s face appeared behind one of its windows. “Um, could you get me out of here?”

Kiyotaka nodded at him absently, still feeling somewhat distracted. He looked around, and saw a button. He pressed it. The doors slid open, and Chihiro hopped out. That was peculiarly convenient.

“You haven’t seen Mondo, have you?” was the first thing Kiyotaka asked.

“No,” Chihiro replied. “I did see somebody, but…it definitely wasn’t Mondo.”

Kiyotaka decided to take his word for it, and therefore asked no follow-up questions. In silence, the pair of them began to trudge aimlessly about, avoiding the occasional ghost. Chihiro looked vaguely alarmed at these apparitions, but made no comment.

It was when they had a brief respite from these inexplicable antagonists that Chihiro spoke up. “Taka…” He looked at Kiyotaka, and something about his gaze was penetrating. “Have you ever cried?”

Kiyotaka’s heart tightened with a sharp spasm. “Perhaps,” he said noncommittally. “I don’t…ah…quite recall…” His voice came out breathless and strained.

Chihiro frowned, as if considering something. “ _Why_ would anybody cry? It is pointless. It can’t help anybody. It can’t save them.”

“One does not exactly _choose_ to cry,” Kiyotaka gasped, his heart knotting tighter and tighter. “It could be beyond one’s control.”

“No.” Chihiro shook his head. “If somebody cries, it’s because they _have_ no self-control. Because they weren’t strong enough. You can’t be strong unless you have self-control, you know.”

Kiyotaka stared at him, aghast. “…Chihiro?!” Something was wrong. No, wait, _everything_ was wrong. Nothing was at all correct about anything that was happening.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Chihiro said this with the utmost sincerity, his voice quavering a little. “That was kind of an upsetting thing to say, wasn’t it? You shouldn’t have to hear that.”

Kiyotaka was still staring, feeling a muscle under his eye twitch minutely. He was feeling something very, _very_ wrong right then. Something flashed through his mind, and he twitched again.

A very loud clang jolted him out of his stupor. He looked down, to see the steel pipe he had been carrying had fallen to the ground. As he knelt to pick it up, he happened to note that one of his palms was much redder than the other.

“Sorry,” Kiyotaka murmured, in case Chihiro had been startled or unnerved.

Chihiro, as it so happened, was nowhere in sight. Had he run off, scared? Kiyotaka inwardly cursed himself for losing control and letting the pipe drop. He had to stay on top of things. He had to go find Chihiro, and make things up somehow. His eyes darted left and right, and he decided to start in a random direction. There was no methodical way to begin here.

There was, it turned out, no methodical way to do this at all. The subway station was seemingly infinite, and, as he got deeper into it, the scenery became more and more macabre. Unidentifiable corpses lying around, splashes of blood on the floor, pulsing masses of flesh protruding from the walls… It was almost like something out of some ghastly video game. Kiyotaka never played video games. They were awful things. No good could come of them, he thought, determined to keep his mind off his surroundings.

“Taka, I found the exit. Come to the turnstile.”

Kiyotaka jumped for what was probably the sixtieth time that day. It took him a second to realize that the voice, Chihiro’s yet again, was coming from the intercom. How had Chihiro managed to hijack it? Well, he _was_ the Ultimate Programmer…

“It’s–It’s _him_!” Chihiro’s voice crackled through the air again, and this time it was panicked. “He’s coming!” A dull click signified that there was no more information forthcoming.

Him? Him who? Kiyotaka wondered this. Mondo, perhaps? Or the other person that Chihiro had mentioned seeing? It seemed to be somebody dangerous, he thought, as he began to run towards where he recalled the turnstile to be. That ruled out Mondo, then. Mondo wasn’t dangerous.

Kiyotaka’s heart suddenly sank when he saw what was before him.

An escalator. It was the only way up.

Feeling very self-righteous and indignant, he stepped onto it. Of all the boring, dull, _demeaning_ –

Kiyotaka screamed, and grabbed his upper arm. It was wet. He gingerly let go, wincing, and stared at the lacerations that had neatly sliced his perfectly good uniform. If that wasn’t enough, that very same uniform now had a very unseemly bloodstain on it.

He looked up, and instantly had all his questions answered. Well, all the questions involving his upper arm, at least. Some hulking _thing_ was jutting out of the wall, trailing long, clawed appendages. It slashed the air as if to expel any doubt from Kiyotaka’s mind as to who had ruined his shirt. More of them lined the escalator further ahead.

Just as Kiyotaka was wondering what he was supposed to be doing about this, the one closest to him retreated into the wall, and the escalator moved right past where it had been without incident. Still, the others were still there. Not wanting to get slashed again, Kiyotaka took several nervous steps back as he approached them, and the next one retreated.

Suddenly, Kiyotaka was struck with the brilliance of this scenario. He couldn’t stand still. In order to avoid all of them, he had to move around the escalator on his own two feet to guarantee the right timing. He beamed. Whoever had installed these monsters had the right idea. This was how escalators _ought_ to be. It would keep people on their toes. Sure, maybe it _was_ a bit overkill, but it was nice to see all the same.

When he reached the top, Kiyotaka mentally dubbed that the best escalator experience he had ever had, although that was perhaps not saying much. He climbed up a flight of, he was pleased to note, _stairs_ and very nearly broke his neck tripping over a dumbbell that some idiot had left on the floor. He frowned at it disapprovingly as he clambered to his feet. Who could have left something like that here? It couldn’t be…Mondo, could it?

No, that was insane, Kiyotaka reprimanded himself. Mondo didn’t carry dumbbells with him everywhere. _Nobody_ carried dumbbells with him everywhere. Yet there were, he noted, quite a few dumbbells laying around. Even Mondo, strong as he was, couldn’t have carried _that_ many. And why would he be carrying even one in the first place? And why would he have left them on the floor?

Kiyotaka observed that the dumbbells were all lying in front of a particular door, as if marking it out. It was an innocuous door, and he never would have noticed it otherwise. He tried the handle, and it was unlocked. He stepped through, out of a sense of idle curiosity, and–

The _smell_. The smell was awful. He had smelled it when he’d poked his head into Makoto’s shower room after assuring Mondo that he wasn’t going to touch the body. He had smelled it when Junko had crumpled to the floor. He had smelled it as the bloodied baseballs rolled languidly away from a silhouetted figure. He had _smelled_ it when he had charged into the girl’s locker room to see what all the screaming was about. He had _not_ smelled it when…when… No, he had smelled something different then. Something much worse than blood.

With that in mind, seeing Chihiro laid out on the floor covered from head to toe in deep, bleeding cuts did not hit quite as hard as perhaps it ought. Still, it hit hard enough. The despair beginning to settle in him was stayed for a second when Chihiro stirred.

Kiyotaka leapt to his side, kneeling down next to him. “Are you all right?!” he choked.

“It’s just a…a dream, right…?” Chihiro replied weakly. He let out a choking cough. “Sorry…we didn’t find Mondo. I know you need him… ‘Cause you’re…”

“Chihiro, it’s okay!” Kiyotaka interrupted, panicked. “Ah…I’ll do something!” He looked around the room desperately.

A hand seized him by the collar, further bloodying his uniform. “‘Cause you’re…” Chihiro said in wheezing breaths. “… _Weak_.”

And Kiyotaka, yet again, was left to stare at a corpse and wonder where he had gone wrong. There were some cuts, he noticed, as his brain tried to think of anything but what Chihiro had said, that were not random. They very distinctly spelt out the number sixteen-thousand-one-hundred-and-twenty-one. And no, it made no more sense upside-down.


	4. The Forest

He could get used to this whole “Mondo’s bed” thing, Kiyotaka mused, as he realized where he suddenly was. Maybe he’d get used to it quicker if, for just _once_ , Mondo would be there, too. But he never was. Chihiro had been right about it being a dream, then.

Or _not_ , he concluded, looking down at his bloodstained uniform. The first order of business was clearly to change. Luckily, he’d brought his spare uniforms with him when he’d first trudged into Mondo’s room and slammed the door behind him on that fateful night. This wasn’t that bad, Kiyotaka concluded, examining the bloodstains. It looked like he would only have to change his jacket and shirt.

But, when he had done so, he was at a loss as to what to do with the torn and bloody garments. He certainly didn’t want to dirty Mondo’s living quarters–more like Mondo’s _dying_ quarters, a snide voice whispered in his head–with such things. He eventually settled on folding them neatly, making sure the parts with blood were facing inwards, and setting them on the tiled floor of the bathroom. He’d have them dry-cleaned or something if he ever got out of there.

Now, onto the next order of business: What on Earth was going _on_? How had Chihiro died twice? What was that subway station? And, most important of all, was that a _commercial_ blaring from the intercom?! This was a new low in terms of the educational content of Hope’s Peak.

“Are you yearning for that special place to spend quality time with your loved one? Do you need to relax and get away from it all? Come to ‘Silent Hill’ for the ultimate peaceful getaway.”

Yes, Kiyotaka _was_ yearning to spend quality time, or really, any time at all, with his loved one, yes he _did_ need to get away from it all, and _yes_ , an “Ultimate Peaceful Getaway” sounded very suitable. Unfortunately, he hadn’t the faintest idea where “Silent Hill” was, and even if he had, he wasn’t, according to “Kiyondo”, supposed to “go out”. Although that was hardly stopping him, he thought, casting a glance at the gaping hole in the bathroom wall. He admitted to himself the irony of the commercial’s use of the word “ultimate”. That alone made him wonder if Monokuma was just messing with them by engineering false messages of hope. The speaker, however, had a distinctly American accent. Kiyotaka didn’t think Monokuma could do accents, at least not ones that authentic-sounding. But what did he know? Also, “Silent Hill” had sounded like English words. He wasn’t the absolute best at English, but he had a vague idea it meant something like …quiet hill? It sounded very tranquil.

But this was stupid. Why was he dwelling on some random place in America? He had things to do. Things like checking to see if Mondo was still in his room.

He was. He was very clearly sleeping at the moment. Seeing him immobile did not make Kiyotaka feel very well, but Mondo’s chest was rising and falling. That was reassuring, if inexplicable. Something was most definitely going on. He had a sneaking suspicion that maybe he was supposed to be going in that hole again.

It was bigger. It was most definitely bigger. How did these things happen? Somehow, Kiyotaka doubted that any answers lay inside, but he went through anyway.

– – –

Kiyotaka breathed a sigh of relief when he observed nothing that even remotely resembled an escalator. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was currently in the midst of a gloomy, oppressive forest, with no sign of civilization but a few lanterns scattered around and some decrepit fencing. Ah. He was going to have to wander in a random direction again, wasn’t he? He _hated_ doing that. At least here he could get some fresh air, though.

He was just now realizing how much he had missed it. Kiyotaka had never been anywhere near claustrophobic, but this environment, dismal as it was, felt extremely soothing and invigorating. Mondo, now, _he_ had been claustrophobic. He had felt sympathy and concern for Mondo when he’d ranted about how much he’d needed to be outside, and how trapped he felt. Kiyotaka felt a lump in his throat, as he realized that if he’d only taken that more seriously, and maybe tried to help Mondo more, he might not have…snapped. And now… Apparently Mondo was trapped in Kiyotaka’s room the same way Kiyotaka was in Mondo’s, except, as far as he knew, Mondo could not escape through a hole in the wall. He must have been having some sort of mental breakdown. If, of course, he even existed. It could have been some kind of illusion.

Kiyotaka had been walking aimlessly for a while now, and he just then observed a silhouette in the darkness up ahead. It didn’t look like Mondo. “Hello?” he called.

The figure turned towards him. “Ah, Taka. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Celeste?” he asked in surprise, recognizing her luminous red eyes. “How did you get out of the school?”

“I should ask you the same question.” She raised an eyebrow. “I am glad that you have apparently regained the powers of speech.”

Kiyotaka flinched. He had forgotten. The last time he had seen her had been…the trial. He wished she wouldn’t bring it up. “I asked you a _question_!” he snapped. “How did you get out?”

“Hm…” She chuckled lightly. “Yes, that is most inexplicable, is it not?”

Kiyotaka decided to give up. “Have you seen Mondo anywhere, by any chance?” he asked instead.

“I have not seen any butter around, actually,” she said, looking thoughtful. “I _may_ have seen a bit of margarine, though. Why? Are you hungry?”

Kiyotaka was speechless. He was so speechless, in fact, that he quite gave up on the entire endeavor of interacting with Celestia Ludenberg and stalked right past her. He was relieved when she issued no parting shots, and just looked at him as if she had no earthly idea why he was leaving. He glared furiously at the ground as he walked, his thoughts a jumble.

He was jolted out of them in surprise by a loud crash coming from the path up ahead. His head jerked up, and it took him a minute to take in what he saw. A sort of…tarp with spears poking through it was lying on the ground, suspended from a wooden frame. This was a trap, he realized. It was supposed to trigger when he walked under it, and if it had, the spears would have gone right through him. He scolded himself for not paying attention. He could have been killed! He had only been saved by luck, which was not his talent. Of course, it was not entirely clear to Kiyotaka how one was supposed to Moral Compass oneself out of a death trap, but still. He wasn’t Makoto. He couldn’t rely on such coincidences.

Feeling unsettled, he stepped around the macabre sight and continued on. He was very glad to see a gate ahead, with a sign in front of it. Approaching, he realized that the sign was not in Japanese. He knelt down in front of it. It looked like English. He tried desperately to recall his studies on the language. That…that was an “S”, he was pretty sure. And an “I”…

“Silent Hill”. That’s what the sign said. This was extremely odd. Did this mean that he was in America? He supposed it must. This was bad. He was totally unprepared to travel through a foreign country. What if he met a native? He might be unable to communicate! He almost considered going back to look for Celeste, since she _did_ have a European name and accent, and was the most liable of their group to know English. But, no. He was still appalled by her heartless comments. He did not wish to spend any amount of time with her.

The gate was not locked when he tried it. Inside, he found a large courtyard, with a distinctly American-looking building in the center. That settled it, then. It looked quite abandoned. Kiyotaka supposed he had better stay away from it. It wouldn’t do to go traipsing through broken-down buildings. That was extremely dangerous.

With no other option, Kiyotaka was forced to continue wandering aimlessly past the house. Following a path, he came across what appeared to be a graveyard. A little boy stood there, staring down at the ground with a startlingly furious expression on his face. He had stark white hair, and something about his face was faintly familiar.

Oh, dear, thought Kiyotaka. Children. Well, he had to do his duty as a public morals advocate. What if the boy needed help? “Are you all right?” he called, remembering too late that this was apparently America and the boy probably wouldn’t understand him.

Still, he didn’t look American. Actually, he looked Japanese. This was most confusing. The boy looked up, his eyes narrowed in rage. He said nothing, only glared at Kiyotaka. His clothes, Kiyotaka noted, were rather sloppy. He dressed like a little delinquent. Not that there was anything wrong with delinquents, of course, he thought hastily.

“Something monumental is going to occur here.”

Kiyotaka jumped, and whirled around to see Celeste standing behind him. How had she gotten here? Had she been following him?

“Yes… Something very important.” Celeste gave Kiyotaka a piercing stare, before turning and walking into the darkness.

Puzzled, Kiyotaka turned back to the boy, only to see him running away in another direction. What was going on? He decided to go back the way he had come.

When he got back to the house, he saw Celeste standing before the locked door. “Hey!” he shouted. “You shouldn’t go in there! It’s broken-down! You could be injured, and besides, it’s illegal!”

“Ah, Taka!” She turned to him. “It is very good to see you! I am very thirsty, you see. Could you make me some tea?”

Kiyotaka gaped at her. “Tea?” he echoed. “I– I– How do you expect me to do that?”

“Make sure it is simmered in milk,” was her only reply.

“You don’t understand!” Kiyotaka protested. “There are no tea-making implements in the vicinity! Why, there is not even any milk!”

Celeste sighed. “Ah, well. It was worth a try.” She pulled the door open, and stepped inside.

“That place is most likely condemned, you know!” Kiyotaka shouted after her, but she ignored him. He sighed, and decided that he had better follow her. He winced as the porch creaked under his boots. What had she been thinking?

To Kiyotaka’s surprise, the room inside was actually relatively well-lit by the lamps hanging from the ceiling. This was the only thing “well” about it, however. The place was a mess. Papers and broken furniture were scattered all over the floor, and in the midst of it stood Celeste, looking impossibly prim and neat.

“Yes…” she whispered. “This was not what was supposed to happen. Who are you?” she called to seemingly nothing. “What is your purpose?”

Kiyotaka gave her a puzzled look, but was met with no explanation. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that one of the papers was written in Japanese. He picked it up, and was instantly struck by how incredibly irrelevant it was. Except for the bit about despair, perhaps. While Kiyotaka frowned and tried to make sense of it, he heard a door open behind him. He turned to see that Celeste had disappeared. Well, she had probably gone through that half-open door in the corner. He walked over to it and pulled it all the way open, figuring that he probably ought to be keeping track of her.

Kiyotaka probably screamed again. But then, he had a good excuse. In the center of the room, in front of what looked rather like an altar, was Celeste. On fire.

“H-How–?!” Kiyotaka choked, eyes wide. He probably ought to be doing something. Now would have been a good time to have a bucket of tea available, wouldn’t it?

Celeste laughed. It was not her typical, false giggle, but something a good deal more alarming. She was holding a candlestick in her hand, and, before Kiyotaka’s wide eyes, she carefully carved a series of lines into her chest: the number 17121. This didn’t look like anything upside-down, either. “This was supposed to go the other way around, was it not?” she gasped. “Very ironic. Will you, perhaps, be executed with a blow to the head? Mmm… I wonder…” And with that, she collapsed onto the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid I rather arbitrarily concluded that Ishimaru would know enough English to read and understand the words "Silent Hill". I admit to having no idea how accurate that actually is.


	5. The Water Prison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (3/25/2017: Hi, I'm editing this chapter years later because I realized the age Ishimaru gives is actually completely wrong. Whoops. Better late than never.)

Kiyotaka was jolted awake this time by his–well, Mondo’s, actually–insistently ringing doorbell. He didn’t even bother with pondering the bed this time, he just stood up and walked over to the door. Yes, it was the same as ever.

A click sounded, and yet another definitely-not-Monokuma voice came over the speaker. “Hey, Taka? It’s Makoto. Um, we all know you’re in there. Come on, you’re gonna starve or something if you don’t come out… Can you even hear me?” There was a sigh, and silence filled the room once more.

Kiyotaka wondered exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He could go through the hole again, he supposed. He seemed to meet somebody different every time, and he couldn’t help but hope that Mondo would eventually show up.

As he entered the bathroom, he could have sworn he heard a faint whispering. Oh, good. Something supernatural _must_ have been going on, then. As if it wasn’t undoubtedly doing so already.

The hole, for its part, had grown again. Now, never in his life had Kiyotaka ever dreamed that he could have derived pleasure from any sort of destruction of property, but he had never before realized just how much a man could hate a building. Now, however, he almost _understood_ his classmates in his early years who had held such loathing towards their school. Of course, _they_ had hardly had an excuse. They were just lazy and didn’t take their educations seriously. Kiyotaka, however, was traumatized, which was very different. Very different indeed.

– – –

On the other side of the hole was… Oh, dear. He wasn’t being punished for his thoughts of vandalism, was he? Yes, this was unmistakably some sort of prison. A very run-down looking one, at that. It was also in a peculiar circular shape, with a path winding around a huge column in the center of the room.

“Hey, somebody get me outta here!”

Kiyotaka’s heart leapt into his throat. A voice was calling for help. That was not noteworthy, given the sorts of things that had been happening lately. What _was_ noteworthy were the voice’s distinctive characteristics. Male, marginally deeper than average, unrefined, slightly lazy… Oh, sure, it clearly wasn’t _Mondo’s_ voice, but it was a good deal closer than either Chihiro or Celeste could have come if their lives had depended on it. It was, if nothing else, a step in the right direction.

As anyone suitably obsessed with dead gang leaders would, Kiyotaka quickly began to proceed down the “hall”, as it were, although it was really just a peculiar circular room. Misusing hall terminology… What was _wrong_ with him? He had to put his mind in order at some point.

Yet there, as he rounded, well, it could hardly be called a _corner_ , Kiyotaka supposed… Anyway, as he rounded it, there was something that seemed to be thwarting his attempts to remain in control of himself. One of the cells lining the column was inhabited, presumably by the man whose voice he had heard. And what a man it was. Perhaps the most shocking thing about his appearance was that it had never quite occurred to Kiyotaka that anyone besides Mondo actually had hair like that. True, it didn’t _quite_ measure up, and it was monochrome, but still…

“What’re you staring at, kid?” the man asked impatiently.

“Your hair…” was all Kiyotaka managed to gasp, which he realized too late was hardly polite.

The man snorted. “What, seriously? If you think _this_ is bad, you should meet my little brother. Listen, could you find a key or something? There’s this creepy guy around, and I think he’s tryin’ to kill me.”

“What is your name?” asked Kiyotaka, trying to keep his voice level.

“Daiya Owada. No offense, but do we have _time_ for a pleasant chat?”

“And is your brother’s name Mondo?” Kiyotaka asked urgently.

“Yeah… Do you know him?” Daiya raised an eyebrow. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know how I got here, would you? Or where this is?”

“I wen– _go_ to school with him,” replied Kiyotaka, deciding not to try to explain the whole “murder” thing. “And I have no idea how either you or I came to be here, nor where this is.”

“Does he bully you?” Daiya asked, looking mildly sympathetic. “Just hit him, and he’ll leave you alone, okay?”

“What? No!” Kiyotaka responded, shocked. “Mondo _is_ the kindest person I have ever met!”

“What the hell did he do to make such a good impression?” asked Daiya incredulously. “Wait, never mind. Just…get me outta here. We’ll talk about this later.”

Kiyotaka nodded numbly, and finding the door to be indeed locked, continued along the “hallway” looking for some way to open the door. He found ladders leading to upper levels of the building, and entered what he estimated to be the third floor. Finding one of the cell doors on the third floor to be unlocked, he went inside and was met with a hole in the center of the floor taking up a good portion of the room.

The sensation Kiyotaka felt at this point was one he had never experienced in any capacity before. Indeed, a very small portion of the human race ever had. It was a feeling entirely unique to the town of Silent Hill, as it so happened, one which occurred only when faced with sufficiently deep holes in the floor. It could be surmised that perhaps this quirk of the town’s was at least partly responsible for its abnormally high suicide rate. Regardless, Kiyotaka, despite hardly being what one would call “weak-willed”, succumbed to the emotion and hopped into the hole without a second thought.

This turned out to be a bad idea, and not for any of the obvious reasons, for both Kiyotaka’s legs were entirely intact and hardly hurt at all upon landing. The bad news was that the room he had fallen into was inhabited, and not by anyone a sane person would like to see. Kiyotaka’s sanity may have been in question to some degree, but even his surprise was not remotely pleasant when he saw the two, for lack of a better word, individuals standing there.

“ _Receiver…_ ” was the whispered word that echoed through the room from four throats. One may wonder how four throats could have possibly been in the room, given the aforementioned two inhabitants plus Kiyotaka, but that assumption would not be taking into account the characteristics of these two inhabitants.

They could be described as a pair of two-headed women cloaked in long robes who were managing the impressive feat of staying upright while standing on their hands. They could also be described as terrifying, and, as Kiyotaka stared at them wide-eyed, just a little bit familiar. He didn’t even try to wonder how something like this could _possibly_ be familiar, he just lunged for a nearby door, behind which he found a ladder, and climbed up into the next room, which was thankfully devoid of any life forms, terrifying or otherwise. There was, however, a valve set into the middle of the floor on an upraised podium.

Kiyotaka did what any person would have. He twisted the valve. The result was suitably dramatic: a rumbling sound was heard, followed by a loud click. Kiyotaka, feeling his work was done, went back down the ladder.

There, in the quite genuine hall below, stood Daiya, who seemed to be talking to a familiar figure. Thankfully, it was not the two-headed familiar figure from earlier, rather the angry white-haired boy from the forest. The boy, when it caught sight of Kiyotaka, fled down the hallway. He was a delinquent, all right.

Speaking of delinquents, Daiya turned around at that moment. “Oh, hey. Thanks for opening the cell, assuming it was you who did that.”

Kiyotaka was admittedly unsure of this himself, so he changed the subject. “Who was that boy?”

“Kiyondo Ishida, apparently,” said Daiya, shrugging. “Whoever _that_ is. Is he a relative of yours?”

“What?” Kiyotaka asked blankly. “No; I’ve never seen him before today.”

“He looks like you, though.” Daiya studied Kiyotaka’s face. “So, what’s your name?”

“Kiyotaka Ishimaru.”

“…You’re _sure_ you’re not related?” asked Daiya. “It’s kinda funny, both of you guys’ names start the same.”

“Well, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,” said Kiyotaka absently, pondering the name. _Kiyo…ndo. Ishi…da_. Wait, wait, wait. Now _that_ was a coincidence. “…And his name ends with the same letters as Mondo’s…”

“You’re right,” said Daiya. “That’s weird. And he dresses just like Mondo did when he was real young, too. _And_ he was talking like him. Are you and Mondo planning on having any kids and giving them a time machine?”

Kiyotaka didn’t know how to reply to that. The theory was unlikely, for the obvious reason of Mondo being dead. But then, “dead” hardly meant much anymore, given whom Kiyotaka was conversing with, amongst other things.

Daiya was still studying him. “How old are you, anyway?” he asked. “You seem older than Mondo.”

“Seventeen,” Kiyotaka replied instantly. “Why?”

“Huh. I guess you’re just mature-looking, or whatever.” Daiya glanced at a nearby door. “Well, I’m getting out of here. See you later, kid.” He was very soon out of sight.

Kiyotaka stood there for a minute, frowning, before suddenly cursing himself for letting Daiya go on alone. Judging by how things had been going, he was probably going to end up dead. How was Kiyotaka ever supposed to face Mondo if he let his brother die? Mondo, Kiyotaka reflected, who was, on second thought, also dead. And Daiya was dead already, come to think of it. Chihiro had been, as well. None of this made much sense. Still, Kiyotaka shouldn’t let anyone wander this place alone. He ran in the direction Daiya had gone, forced to randomly navigate a labyrinth of ladders, hallways, and unclassifiable circular rooms, before finally swinging open a door.

What made this door different from the others he had swung open was what lay beyond it. There was a deep pool of water, and there, floating on the surface, was a very dead Daiya, with the number 18121 carved across his chest. This was so unsurprising that Kiyotaka barely felt any anguish at all, and he had to admit that what little anguish he did feel was entirely dependent on the corpse’s physical resemblance to Mondo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the monsters are not identical to those in Silent Hill 4. There is a certain amount of logic put into their alterations, which should hopefully be at least somewhat apparent.


	6. The Building

Mondo’s bed, Mondo’s bed, _Mondo’s bed_. This was getting ridiculous. Why was he always deposited in the same place, with no memory of how he had gotten there? He had only ever laid down on it _once_ , on that miserable night which began this whole thing. Perhaps this was all a recursive, lucid dream, but it was getting awfully long and detailed. Dreams weren’t supposed to be like that.

Kiyotaka looked up as, yet again, the speakers switched on and voices began to filter through.

“Have you had any success?”

“No… Sorry, Kyoko. I know you need him for the murder investigation and all, but I can’t even tell if he’s in there. I slipped a note under the door, but…”

“Given the circumstances, he must be considered one of the prime suspects.”

“I know, I know. What do you suppose Monokuma’ll do if he doesn’t come out for the trial?”

“I’m not certain, but I highly doubt it will be pleasant.”

“Yeah…”

The speaker cut out at this point, leaving Kiyotaka even more bewildered than before it had come on. Makoto had mentioned slipping a note under the door, though, hadn’t he? He walked over to the still-chained-up door and found that, sure enough, there was a scrap of paper on the floor in front of it.

Bending down to pick it up, Kiyotaka couldn’t help but notice that the page was stained a very distinctive shade of pink. It appeared to be soaked in blood, rendering whatever could have been written on it entirely illegible. Explanations for this stubbornly refused to spring to Kiyotaka’s mind.

Explanations stayed stubborn when he found the shower stained with blood, as well. It reminded Kiyotaka of the first crime scene. Was this some sort of cosmic comeuppance for that joke he had made after the first trial about rotting corpses in bathrooms? It had been rather insensitive, Kiyotaka had to admit in retrospect. He was just glad it was blood and not butter. That would have been a little too much.

And there was the hole, as cavernous as ever. Rather _more_ cavernous, actually. This was becoming almost routine.

– – –

The scenery this time around was decidedly urban. As Kiyotaka surmised from the license plate of a nearby car, it was America again. This was all very puzzling. How was America at all relevant? An inhuman screeching sound came from behind him. Kiyotaka turned. There stood a lumbering, malformed thing that fit many common descriptors of a zombie. Well, how were zombies relevant, either?

Making a hasty retreat down an alleyway, Kiyotaka seriously considered the idea that this was all a dream. This idea may or may not have been given some serious validation when Byakuya Togami fell from the sky and landed several feet away.

Byakuya stood and brushed himself off, looking impressively uninjured. His eyes narrowed when he saw Kiyotaka standing speechless before him. “Taka. It appears I’ve been dropped into your twisted psyche made corporeal.” He paused. “Or something of that ridiculous nature.”

“How did you get here?” asked Kiyotaka, filing this latest theory with his many others, all equally unlikely.

“Oh, how nice,” Byakuya sneered. “You can talk. With a bit of therapy, I’m sure you’ll make a full recovery. Just don’t expect _me_ to provide it. I have far better things to do.”

“ _Listen_ , Byakuya!” Kiyotaka snapped. “I have asked you a question, and I would very much like you to at least _attempt_ an answer! And I am afraid Makoto is not here for you to call upon to read your mind and answer for you!”

“ _Fine_!” Byakuya snarled back. “I have no idea _how_ I came to be in this wretched place! But if you know how to get back, I would advise you to _tell me_ , as I am missing the investigation!”

“Investigation?” asked Kiyotaka, recalling the conversation he had heard earlier. “For Celeste’s murder?”

“You are making this _too_ easy.” Byakuya rolled his eyes. “Such an idiotic mistake to make… Explain how you know that she was murdered, or I shall assume that you found out the same way Mondo found out the color of Chihiro’s track jacket.”

“I heard Kyoko and Makoto discussing it outside my door!” Kiyotaka spat, resisting the urge to resort to physical violence.

“There are two errors in your statement,” Byakuya retorted cooly. “First of all, the rooms are soundproof. Secondly, it could hardly be called _your_ door, could it?”

“Their conversation was broadcast over the intercom for some reason.” Kiyotaka was finding it difficult to keep his voice level.

“I’m sure that can be proven wrong in a trial environment,” said Byakuya, waving his hand dismissively. “You may as well stop incriminating yourself until we have an audience. I’d hate to have to repeat everything.”

“I believe I shall be going, now.” Kiyotaka took a pointed step past him. “If you happen to come across a a white-haired young boy calling himself ‘Kiyondo Ishida’, please inform me.”

“Is that the imaginary child you had with Mondo?” asked Byakuya, stifling a laugh. “And you’ve _lost_ him, too? That is _quite_ sad.”

Kiyotaka bit back a retort, and came to the conclusion that this was an individual he was not at all upset to be going separate ways with.

– – –

This was a whole new level of labyrinthian, Kiyotaka concluded, after quite a lot of floundering about at random. Was America supposed to be this confusing? And this uninhabited? And this full of zombies? It was doubtful. Things became marginally interesting when the very hazardous-looking elevator Kiyotaka happened to be traveling down in at the moment passed by another elevator going in the opposite direction. What made this interesting were the inhabitants: Byakuya and Kiyondo.

“Are you supposed to be Kiyondo Ishida?” Byakuya was asking skeptically. “Funny… I thought Taka was making you up. I don’t suppose _you_ have all the answers, do you?”

Kiyondo simply snarled at him as the elevator passed out of earshot.

Kiyotaka sighed, resigning himself to more pointless wandering.

This was not far from the truth, given how much of it was required in order to reach the next noteworthy sight: a very, very tall flight of stairs lining the walls of a room whose ceiling was probably _somewhere_ in that darkness.

Kiyotaka was about a third of the way up these stairs when it dawned on him how poetically just this was. He _had_ been complaining about escalators, hadn’t he? Surely the dull pain beginning to seep into his legs was preferable to the alternative of knowing that he was contributing to the decline of society? The ghosts, however, were pushing it. They were the same ghosts he had seen in the subway, and they had not become any more friendly. He was very quickly developing an ache in his head to go along with his legs, and being near the girlish phantasms seemed to make it worse.

There, at long last, was the final landing, with a solitary door set into the wall. Kiyotaka was starting to realize what happened when one opened suitably dramatic doors in these places, but he opened it all the same.

Now _this_ was far more of an execution than whatever needlessly traumatic nonsense Monokuma came up with. And perhaps, Kiyotaka allowed himself to think just for a second, a more deserving victim than any of the ones Monokuma came up with, for there was Byakuya, in an electric chair, with the number “19121” on his forehead. Well, the number wasn’t particularly satisfying, but the rest of it was.

But Kiyotaka put aside his personal feelings like any Moral Compass would by trying to rip off one of the chair’s restraints, and got himself briefly electrocuted for doing so. That fulfilled his altruism quota for the current situation, right?

“Th-th-th-that…is n-n-no…ordinary… _ch-child_ …” Byakuya hissed, drawing Kiyotaka’s attention to the familiar white-haired boy in the room, looking out the window as if nothing in particular was going on. Yes, that _was_ hardly ordinary childlike behavior. “That’s–That’s–That’s–Th–“

And then there was silence, save for a slight residual crackling sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am afraid I am not entirely confident in my ability to write Togami in character, but hopefully that was not glaringly obvious.


	7. The Academy

“Have you noticed any connections between the victims, Makoto?”

Kiyotaka opened his eyes to find that the intercom was already broadcasting the latest conversation. It hadn’t even waited for him to wake up first.

“Uh, not really… Should I?”

“Well, this is admittedly guesswork, but do you realize that Celeste and Byakuya were the most openly unsympathetic towards Taka’s grief? And both of them played integral parts in condemning Mondo…”

“So did we! If Taka really did kill them, and that was his reason, why didn’t he kill you instead of Celeste? You were the one who cast suspicion on Mondo in the first place.”

“True… There is always the possibility that I am next, of course.”

“But it says in the rules that only two murders are allowed…”

“I feel we are missing a good deal of information in this case.”

“Definitely. Have you figured out anything about the numbers?”

“Well, I did wonder if perhaps the ‘one’ in the center was supposed to represent a slash, making them ’17 out of 21’ and ’19 out of 21’, but that would imply that there were 1-16 out of 21, as well as an 18…”

“And there aren’t even 21 people in the school. Yeah, I don’t think that’s it. Did you ask Alter Ego?”

“Yes. He said he would work on it, but he hasn’t come up with anything yet.”

Kiyotaka lay there in silence for a while, although he was pretty sure the conversation was over. He knew that there _was_ a 16 and an 18, although he wasn’t sure about 1 through 15. Was this going to happen only twice more, then? And what would happen when it was done? And who was this Alter Ego they had mentioned?

When Kiyotaka finally got out of bed, he found that the hole had grown again. Well, it could only happen two more times, right? Maybe then he could leave. But who else was going to be killed? Suppose it was Mondo? After all, this mysterious killer hardly seemed to be limiting itself to the living…

If he met Mondo in there, Kiyotaka decided, he wasn’t going to let him out of his sight. No more wandering off, no more getting separated. He wouldn’t turn his back on him for a second.

– – –

Kiyotaka was met with the sound of a human fist knocking on a door. He squinted, trying to get his bearings, and was instantly struck with a shocking amount of familiarity.

The hallway was familiar: it was housed the dormitories of Hope’s Peak Academy. The door being knocked on was familiar: it was Kiyotaka’s own. Finally, the man knocking on the door was _highly_ familiar: he was Kiyotaka himself, only with white hair. This mysterious individual did not spare a glance for his duplicate, merely turning on his heels and walking away at a brisk pace.

Kiyotaka stood up. At least he was finally in a familiar environment, although the building appeared to be in a state of far greater decay than he remembered. Did the floor always consist of grates? He wasn’t altogether sure that it had. He turned around to see Mondo’s door from the other side for once. Curiously, he tried the door, and was not entirely shocked to find it locked.

Kiyotaka quickly made his way through the hall, hoping to find some of the other students. It seemed oddly quiet. Perhaps everyone was at the trial. As he passed by the stairs leading to the second floor, he caught sight of the white-haired version of himself, glaring in rage at the floor.

“Excuse me!” Kiyotaka called.

The man’s head snapped up, his eyes so intense that they seemed to be glowing.

“Couldn’t you find somewhere else to sit?” Kiyotaka scolded. “Your current location is highly impractical. What if someone wished to ascend those stairs?”

“Let ‘em try,” the man hissed, casting his eyes down to the floor again. “They deserve a bit of _inconvenience_ , the jerks. The _monsters_.” His voice was not unfamiliar, but it could not be described entirely as Kiyotaka’s own, either.

“You shouldn’t speak that way about our classmates.” Kiyotaka frowned. “They are good people, with bright futures ahead of them should they manage to escape.”

The man laughed a very forced, bitter laugh. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. They should all _die_ , the lot of ‘em.” His hands clenched into fists.

“But that’s horrible!” gasped Kiyotaka. “What _are_ you?”

“Better,” –the man’s furious eyes met Kiyotaka’s– “than _you_.”

Kiyotaka just stared at him. “Are you…wearing Mondo’s coat?”

The man’t eye twitched. “it’s _mine_.” He tugged it closer around himself.

Kiyotaka very much doubted that, somehow, but decided not to say anything. Casting the man one last incredulous glance, he continued down the halls to the door that lead to the elevator. It was, not entirely surprisingly, locked. It seemed unlike Monokuma to purposefully bar a student from a trial, particularly if they were the main suspect, so he could not help but conclude that the trial was not currently in session. But then, where was everybody? According to his watch, it was the middle of the day.

Walking back towards the dormitories, Kiyotaka observed that the stairs were now vacant. Perhaps the man had taken his advice after all. As he drew closer, he saw that the door to his room was ajar, which it most decidedly had not been before. Kiyotaka’s stomach twisted. Mondo was supposed to be in there.

As it turned out, Mondo _was_ in there. To be more precise, Mondo was lying on the floor in a pool of blood with the numbers “20121” carved into his back. Standing before him was Kiyondo, who look unfazed by the scene before him.

“Thanks, kid.” Mondo raised his head weakly to look Kiyondo in the eye. His voice echoed hoarsely through the room, and it was the most beautiful sound Kiyotaka had heard in his life. “You should prolly get outta here… S’dangerous… Well, I guess that’s kinda obvious, ain’t it?” He chuckled a little at that, and the action transformed into a violent fit of coughing, which itself morphed into a sort of choking sound. Blood began to trickle from his mouth.

This roused Kiyotaka from his horrified stupor, and he leapt towards him. The world seemed to slow down as he traversed the few feet between himself and Mondo, and with every inch, black began to creep in at the edges of his vision. He did not manage to reach him before the darkness swallowed him entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is abnormally short due to the fact that this portion of Silent Hill 4 consists mainly of breaking into other people's apartments and reading their mail, something I could not fathom Ishimaru doing under any circumstances. In other news, today is Ishimaru's birthday, although this chapter could hardly be described as celebratory.


	8. The Hospital (Part One)

No, no, _no_. Not _now_. This was the worst possible time imaginable to be in Mondo’s bed. Kiyotaka’s knuckles whitened around the bunched-up sheets. That had been completely unfair. He had been given no opportunity to even _talk_ to Mondo before finding him dying on the floor, much less protect him. _And he could have protected him._ Kiyotaka was certain of that. He was also becoming more and more certain that the man who had resembled him so much had been responsible somehow. Whoever he was, he seemed to hold no small amount of vitriol towards the student body of Hope’s Peak Academy, perhaps explaining the frequency with which they were turning up dead. Even the ones who were dead already. Still, that hardly explained Daiya…

It was official. There was no making sense of this. Kiyotaka couldn’t even manage to be righteously angry when he had so little idea of what was going on. Looking in the bathroom, he observed that the hole had not grown any further. Leaning against the wall next to it was the steel pipe he had with him in the subway, which he had entirely forgotten about. He picked it up, just in case in he encountered the individual responsible for recent events. He wasn’t going to _kill_ them if he could help it, of course. Just maybe… Well, to be honest, Kiyotaka wasn’t entirely sure what he was planning on doing, but it was sure going to be _something_ , all right.

– – –

Slowly, the room that lay beyond the hole this time fuzzed into focus. It appeared to be medical in nature. Perhaps a hospital, albeit one which was doing a very poor job of fulfilling the sanitation requirements. Kiyotaka’s eyes drifted around the room, and abruptly froze. Now _that_ was a very poor job of fulfilling just about every hospital requirement imaginable.

Standing before a table in the corner of the room was the man who so resembled Kiyotaka himself. He plunged his bare hand into the open chest cavity of a man lying partly dissected on the table, and withdrew a bright pink mass that was likely an organ of some kind. With a sharp jerk, the man snapped the visceral cords trailing from the mass to the man’s body. He cradled the organ almost gently for a second, before his face transformed into a mask of pure rage and he flung it against the wall. It hit with an audible “splat”, splashing blood across the room.

Kiyotaka let out a strangled sort of squawk. That had _not_ just happened.

Hearing this, the man whirled around to face him. “Don’t _look_ at me like that!” he snarled. “Like you wouldn’t do that _exact_ same thing!” His thoroughly bloodied hand clenched the air dramatically.

Kiyotaka, perhaps wisely, decided to flee the scene at this point. Thankfully, the nearby door was unlocked. Once he had stepped through, he slammed it shut behind him. He leaned with his back against it until his heartbeat calmed down and the adrenaline ceased to course through his body. He supposed that maybe he ought to have attacked the man. He did still have the pipe with him, after all. Still, was there any proof that he was actually responsible for these goings-on? Maybe he was just creepy.

Kiyotaka warily cast his eyes around the room he had entered. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was a hallway. A comforting, orthodox, completely typical hallway, lined with identical doors. Sure, it was rather more grungy than perhaps a hallway ought to be, particularly a hallway in a hospital, but it was, at least, free of any mind-bending or gory sights. Kiyotaka, methodical as always, turned the knob of the door closest to him, and it swung open.

_Oh_. So much for…not…mind-bending… Kiyotaka made some sort of noise, or, at least, he thought he did, although he failed to observe exactly what sort of noise it was. This was because he was entirely distracted by the sight before him. Growing out of the floor, filling the entire room, and _twitching slightly_ was… Kiyotaka supposed that he could have called it a giant replica of Mondo’s head. That, however, would fail to convey its sheer bizarreness. Nothing could quite describe the peculiar, almost human noises it was making, the way it managed to make the simple and pleasant occurrence of Mondo breathing downright horrifying, the erratic manner in which its pupils moved, its ever-so-slightly _off_ proportions.

Kiyotaka didn’t take even a single step inside. He just slammed the door. He wasn’t going to deal with this. No one should have to deal with this. He turned his eyes back to the long hallway, drowning in its normality. A thousand hallways, however, could not have wiped the scene from his brain. He wondered if maybe he should try another door. Nothing could be weirder than what he had just seen, right? But supposing it was? Supposing that was only the first of traumatic and warping sights that would leave him an incoherent wreck by the time he had opened every door? Well, even if that were true, Kiyotaka was desperately in need of a distraction, and so he boldly opened the next door.

Kiyotaka began to breathe again and entered the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. He hadn’t even realized he had stopped breathing in the first place, but the oxygen returning to his brain helped calm his nerves almost as much as the–marvelous, fortuitous, beautiful–sight before him.

Just as in the room before, Mondo was breathing. This, however, was by far a better example of the “Mondo breathing” phenomenon than _that_ could have ever hoped to be. This was Mondo’s entire body, lying unconscious on a bed at exactly the size it was supposed to be, and it was unmistakably _human_.

The bad news, although it hardly left a dent in Kiyotaka’s euphoria, was that Mondo’s arms, which were bare thanks to the mysterious absence of his coat, were punctuated by cuts, bruises, and bandages, as was his face. But he was _breathing_ , and even the bandages were comforting in that nobody would place them on a dead man. Most important at all, he was entirely solid and corporeal. At least, he sure _looked_ solid and corporeal.

Needing verification, Kiyotaka knelt down beside the bed. He frowned as his eyes traveled up and down Mondo’s arm, looking for an unbruised area. He eventually settled on a mostly healthy spot, and gingerly wrapped his fingers around it. He _was_ solid. Not only that, but he was warm, and his pulse was faintly observable. Kiyotaka felt a smile spread across his face, an alien sensation.

Mondo’s left eye, the one uncovered by bandages, slowly opened, his familiar lilac iris shaded by his thick eyelashes. His pupil, as it drifted languidly across the room, abruptly shrank to a pinprick when it landed upon Kiyotaka.

In a flash, Mondo had sat up and had his back against the wall, breathing heavily. He let out the most uncharacteristic shriek.

“Mondo?” Kiyotaka asked, frowning. “Are you all right?”

“AM I _ALL_ –?!” Mondo spluttered. He pulled his left arm, which was incidentally not the one Kiyotaka had touched, to his chest protectively. “WHAT THE FUCK D’YA _THINK_?!”

“I’m sorry.” Kiyotaka tilted his head to the side. “Did I hurt you?”

Mondo gaped at him in utter disbelief. “What the hell! Are you _insane_?! What does this _look_ like to _you_?!” He winced as he gestured his left arm in the air.

“But… I didn’t even touch that arm,” Kiyotaka pointed out, puzzled.

“ _Bullshit!_ ” Mondo exclaimed. He jerked out of reach as Kiyotaka extended a hand. “DON’T _TOUCH_ ME!”

“…All right.” Kiyotaka raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I won’t.” Mondo’s reaction was mildly upsetting, but somehow Kiyotaka was still the happiest he had been in quite some time. Even Mondo’s nigh-continuous use of profanity offended him about ten times less than it used to.

“What do ya even _mean_ , ya _‘didn’t even touch my arm’_?” Mondo’s voice was still on the edge of hysterical, but his body was beginning to relax slightly. “What’d ya _do_ , then? Hit it with a baseball bat? Look, when a dude breaks my arm, I’m gonna fuckin’ _notice_!”

“I am not arguing that your arm is indeed broken,” replied Kiyotaka. “But…are you trying to say that you are under the impression that _I_ broke it?”

“ _YES_!” Mondo shouted agitatedly. “THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYIN’! Are _you_ tryin’ to say ya _didn’t_?”

“Of _course_ I didn’t!” Kiyotaka recoiled at the concept. “I would _never_!”

“Explain _this_ , then!” Mondo waved his arm around again, but stopped abruptly with a hiss of pain.

“Stop doing that!” Kiyotaka snapped. “You will re-injure yourself!” Mondo opened his mouth to protest, but Kiyotaka cut him off with, “I promise, I did _not_ do this to you. Clearly, _somebody_ did, but it _wasn’t me_. I have seen evidence that it may have been a man who appears identical to me. Tell me, the man who attacked you: did he have white hair?”

“Yeah…” Mondo said suspiciously. “Are you tellin’ me it was your evil twin, or something? D’you really think I’m that stupid?”

“I have _seen_ him, Mondo,” Kiyotaka said urgently. “I have seen him in this very building!”

Mondo flinched back further into the wall. “No… You’re lyin’…” He didn’t sound very certain. “Even if what ya say’s true… How do I know this ain’t just like Genocide Jack, or whoever? Sure, you might not _remember_ hurting me, but–“

“It _wasn’t_ me!” Kiyotaka pleaded. “You have to believe me! I know we cannot be the same person! I have talked to him!”

“Oh, yeah?” Mondo narrowed his eyes. “What’d he say?”

“Something about how everyone in Hope’s Peak Academy deserved to die,” replied Kiyotaka. “I don’t know what he was talking about.”

“Speakin’ of that…” Mondo said, his voice calming down. “Where the hell is this, anyway? How’d we get outta the school?”

“I have been wondering much the same things as of late,” Kiyotaka confessed. “You see, I keep ending up in all these different locations, many of them in America for some reason, with no explanation for how I got there, or how I keep getting back. And there is always some strange child there, named ‘Kiyondo Ishida’.”

“That’s our names all smashed together, ain’t it?” Mondo asked.

“Yes,” said Kiyotaka, suppressing an inexplicable squeal of delight at the idea that Mondo had noticed. “I did notice that. I am unsure what the reason is, but he is frequently present.”

“I did see a kid,” Mondo admitted. “He scared off that…dude who looks like you. Ya think he was the same kid you keep seeing?”

“Very likely.” Kiyotaka nodded his head seriously.

“Okay…” Mondo sighed deeply. “I believe ya.” He held out a hand.

“You _do_?!” Kiyotaka exclaimed in delight, staring at it.

“Yeah.” Mondo averted his eyes. “I mean… I know you’re too practical to just make up shit like that. An’ I was stupid to think _you’d_ ever hurt me, anyways.”

Kiyotaka seized the hand before him, his eyes shining. “I forgive you, bro!” he said enthusiastically. “It is perfectly understandable that you would be distrustful of me after your experience!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Mondo turned slightly pink. “So are we gonna get outta here, or what?”

“You can’t!” Kiyotaka eyes grew wide. “You are in no position to travel! Of course, I could not dream of leaving you, so we ought to both stay right here!”

“What?” Mondo groaned. “What the fuck are we supposed to do in a room with nothin’ in it but a _bed_ for who knows how long?”

A few seductive comebacks to this line made an unwelcome appearance in Kiyotaka’s head. He decided to ignore them.

Mondo, for better or worse, did not seem to realize what he had just said. “‘Sides, you said you saw that dude here, right? Supposin’ he comes in here?”

“That is a very good point.” Kiyotaka frowned, brushing a few beads of residual sweat from his brow. “Very well. You must come with me.” He glanced at the steel pipe he had left leaning by the doorframe. “However, as I am armed and in better physical condition than you, I am ordering you to stay behind me at all times. If I am moving too fast for you, please tell me, and I shall slow down. I don’t wish to leave you behind.”

“I’ll be _fine_!” Mondo growled, slowly getting to his feet. “Don’t treat me like a little girl!”

“I am _treating_ you like somebody with serious injuries, which you _are_!” Kiyotaka reprimanded. “Don’t be ridiculous about this!” He picked up the steel pipe and pulled the door open. Mondo followed him out into the hall, grumbling under his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, Mondo is actually in the story. That took a somewhat ridiculous amount of time.


	9. The Hospital (Part Two)

Thud. Thud. _Thud_.

Kiyotaka whirled around to face the noises emanating from one end of the hall. Advancing in perfect synchronization, their heads scraping the ceiling, were a pair of hulking men who, despite their size, were moving with inexplicable grace and fluidity. As they approached, their innumerable deformities became apparent, as did their ripped and disheveled garments. That wasn’t, Kiyotaka couldn’t help observing, the only ripped thing about them.

“What’re _those_ supposed to be?!” Mondo demanded, struggling to keep his voice level. “Those ain’t human!”

“No,” Kiyotaka observed absently, unable to keep his eyes off their slow and perfectly calculated movements. “Humans…don’t look like that.”

“ _I’ll_ say they don’t!” Mondo exclaimed in horror. “We gonna run, or what?”

“Yes…” Kiyotaka nodded. His voice sounded rather distracted, even to his own ears. The beings’ twisted appearance was clearly not a natural aspect of their biology. Who could have done something like that to such beautiful creatures? He began to back down the hall. “Mondo, you should get a head start.”

Mondo made a noise as if was considering complaining, but seemed to think better of it, as behind Kiyotaka, his footsteps began to sound. They were far more uneven and arrhythmic than the audible footsteps of the approaching creatures, and they were itching Kiyotaka’s ears. He internally begged Mondo to get out of earshot so he could listen to nothing but _their_ footfalls.

A hiss of pain was what finally jolted Kiyotaka out of his trance. He turned around to see Mondo leaning against the wall, putting his weight entirely on one of his feet.

“Are you all right?” Kiyotaka asked, his voice now as sharp and alert as ever.

“ _Fine_!” Mondo growled. “Just _kinda_ hard to run, but I’ll manage, an– LOOK BEHIND YOU!“

Kiyotaka obeyed this command, turning to see the two creatures a mere foot away. He had to crane his neck to meet their distorted eyes. Still in perfect sync, they raised a pair of rusty pipes, winding their tightly muscled arms in preparation to crash them down on Kiyotaka’s skull.

He leapt back, and the pipes instead struck the floor with a loud hollow sound. This barely fazed the two, and they simply stepped forward again. It puzzled Kiyotaka when they stopped before they were within reach of him. It was only when one of them began to raise its pipe again that he realized something extremely important about who they _were_ within reach of.

Kiyotaka leapt forward again and blocked the pipe with his own, the impact sending painful ripples up his arms. He bit his lip, and willed away the throbbing.

“Uh…thanks, man,” Mondo said breathlessly, his eyes wide. “Let me just–“ He took another step down the hallway and away from the creatures, and winced. “Shit, maybe my ankle is broken or somethin’. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine in a second.”

“That’s _not_ how broken ankles work!” Kiyotaka argued, trying to take his mind off the pain still coursing through his arm muscles.

“Well, maybe it’s sprained, then!” Mondo shot back. “Or twisted! Bruised! Whatever! Don’t ask _me_! I ain’t a doctor!”

Kiyotaka wasn’t listening. The creatures had moved forward, and _their_ arms seemed far less sore, judging by the easy movements with which they were, yet again, lifting the pipes. Kiyotaka’s arms tingled in anticipation as he raised his own pipe. This was going to hurt a _lot_ , even if he successfully managed to block their swings. All it would take was just one fractured bone and he’d be completely incapable of defending himself, let alone Mondo. He tried to tell himself that it was for these logical reasons that he diverted the course of his pipe at the last millisecond and struck the nearest creature’s torso instead, causing it to stumble and let out an audible grunt. But to tell the truth, he had thought of all those good reasons _after_ his blow had landed, and they made sense, all right, but they had been far from his mind in that moment.

What _had_ been on his mind in that moment? Kiyotaka wondered, backing away to give himself more space. He couldn’t say. There was _nothing_ in his memories to account for why he had hit the creature rather than blocking its weapon again. No, no, he _could_ remember something. The skull. He had been aiming for the creature’s skull, but that was beyond his reach, so he had settled for its chest instead. But, that would mean…

Kiyotaka looked up and was faced with one of the creatures inches from him yet again, only to see it crumple to the floor moments later. His palms stung. A pipe dripping blood hovered before him, and his eyes travelled down its length to see a pair of very white hands wrapped around the base. It took him a second to realize that they were his own. _Well_. Was this what Mondo had felt like on that pivotal occasion in the locker room? But no. Mondo had been distraught, of course. Kiyotaka didn’t feel very distraught; there was far too much adrenaline flooding his brain at the moment.

And it was twitching. The thing was still alive. Kiyotaka stepped over to it, dodging a blow from the one still standing along the way, and experimentally dug the toe of his boot into the prone creature’s flesh. He bent his knee, then brought the same boot down on its abdomen with as much force as he could muster.

The ensuing crunch could have been heard in a crowded high school cafeteria. In the tense, silent corridor, it echoed and reverberated, permanently lodging itself in the brains of all who were present. Kiyotaka felt like he was about to vomit. But there wasn’t _time_ for vomiting. He leapt at the sole creature still alive and blindly hammered at it until it doubled over, at which point he sent the pipe crashing down on its skull.

Another crunch. Then silence.

“Holy shit.” All the color had drained from Mondo’s face. He was standing in the same place he was when the fight broke out, leaning heavily on his uninjured leg, a perfect picture of a blood-stained innocent. This was quite literal, for there were now small dots of pink staining his white shirt.

Kiyotaka fell to his knees and retched. If he had eaten anything at all since the before the trial, he would surely have regurgitated it in this moment. As it was, all he could produce was a very small puddle of stomach acid, hardly noticeable at all amidst the far larger puddles of blood and minuscule fragments of something else organic which Kiyotaka didn’t want to identify. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Whoa, are you okay?” came Mondo’s voice from beside him. He had somehow managed to kneel down despite  his ankle.

“Why didn’t I run?” Kiyotaka moaned. “That’s what I did before! It was easy! Why did this time have to be different?”

Mondo was silent for a moment. “…I’m slowing you down, ain’t I?” he said eventually. “This was all my fault. You were right. We _should’ve_ just stayed in that room.”

“ _No_!” Kiyotaka’s head snapped around to face him. “I will not allow you to take responsibility for this! This blood is on _my_ hands! You are _innocent_!”

“You’re not makin’ any sense,” Mondo pointed out. “I fuckin’ _murdered_ a dude, you took out a couple of freaky things that were trying you kill us, and somehow _I’m_ the innocent one?”

“We are _not_ talking about Chihiro,” Kiyotaka hissed vehemently. “He is entirely irrelevant.”

“Okay.” Mondo squeezed his shoulder, and surveyed the carnage in silence for a moment. “What _are_ we talking about?” he asked at last.

“…I don’t know,” Kiyotaka confessed quietly.

“That’s it.” Mondo clambered to his feet. “We’re goin’ someplace _else_.” He extended his uninjured hand.

Kiyotaka stared at it blankly for a moment, before shaking his head minutely and standing up on his own. “Can you walk?” he asked, in what was more a valiant imitation of Kiyotaka Ishimaru’s voice than it was Kiyotaka Ishimaru’s voice.

Mondo took a few steps. “Uh, sort of.”

“That’s not good enough.” Kiyotaka stalked up to him until they were shoulder-to-shoulder. “Lean on me,” he commanded.

“What?” Mondo looked at him. “No way. You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

“I am not.” Kiyotaka stood as straightly and firmly as possible, attempting to suppress even the smallest tremor.

Mondo stood there in silence for a moment, as if trying to think of alternatives. “Fine,” he sighed, slinging his unbroken arm over Kiyotaka’s shoulder.

Kiyotaka quelled the tears welling in the corners of his eyes, something he had never been able to do before. Self-pity was not an option now. Sadness was not an option. _Weakness_ was not an option. “There ought to be an exit somewhere.”

“Somewhere,” Mondo echoed flatly.

Kiyotaka ignored this remark, and led him resolutely in what was, he had to confess, a randomly selected direction. If any monsters still roamed the halls, they seemed to have realized that the limit for melodrama had long been reached, and so kept out of sight. Kiyotaka considered trying some of the doors to see if they led anywhere in particular, but the memory of the surreal head was still fresh in his mind. He didn’t think he wanted to have to explain that to Mondo.

Stairs. Easy to explain, at least, if not to traverse.

Mondo groaned. “Ugh… Do I have to?”

Kiyotaka looked at him in concern. “We could sit here until you are able to walk, if you think that will help.”

“Forget it.” Mondo tentatively extended a foot towards the first step, and then another. “See? I’m just fine.”

Kiyotaka allowed a small smile to cross his face. “I’m glad. Be careful, though.” He took the step himself and grasped Mondo’s hand. “Don’t lean all your weight on your injured leg. You can lean on me again if you need to, and also, don’t forget to–“

“Right, got it,” Mondo said sharply. “Uh, I mean – Thanks.”

Kiyotaka nodded slightly, and they began to proceed down the stairs.

“Hey.” Mondo very shortly broke the silence. “You– You’re not upset, are ya?”

“Upset?” Kiyotaka turned to face him, frowning. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, I kinda snapped at ya, and…” Mondo trailed off upon seeing the look of incomprehension on Kiyotaka’s face. “…Never mind,” he muttered weakly.

“You think that raising your voice would have upset me?” asked Kiyotaka, guiding Mondo down to the next step. “Do I really look that sensitive?” He cast his eyes downward, frowning deeply.

“Not usually, or anything!” Mondo clarified hastily. “I mean – Some serious shit just happened, ya know? I thought that–“

“You thought I was going to cry.”

“Well, yeah,” Mondo admitted. “I’m not sayin’ that’s bad, or anything. I mean, that’s what ya _do_!”

“It is?” Kiyotaka stared at him, a forlorn feeling creeping through him. “That’s what I do? I…cry?”

“I– I thought–“

“I thought I was doing a good job!” Kiyotaka exclaimed. “I thought I had my emotions under control! Am I not trying hard enough?! No! I resolve that, from this point onward, not a single tear shall fall from my eyes!”

“God, just forget I said anything!” Mondo winced as he set his foot on the next step.

“Absolutely not!” Kiyotaka was invigorated by his new resolution. “You were very right to point out that I was failing to live up to my role as a man!”

“I wasn’t tryin’ to _criticize_ ya!” Mondo protested. “I was just bein’ considerate!”

“The consideration you were giving me was of the type that you typically allow a _woman_!” Kiyotaka snapped. “I do not want that kind of consideration from you, bro!”

“Hey, look!” Mondo said loudly. “A door!”

Kiyotaka followed his gaze. There was indeed a small metal door at the bottom of the stairwell, adorned with the same symbol which lined the numerous holes in walls.

“You’re right. That’s a door.” Kiyotaka strode off the last step while Mondo exhaled quietly in relief. “It’s not locked!” he announced in surprise.

“So we’re finally _goin’_ someplace?” Mondo asked hopefully.

Kiyotaka nodded solemnly, before pulling the door open in what was perhaps a slightly overdramatic fashion.

“There’s…” Mondo looked over his shoulder. “…Some more stairs.”

There were indeed, and this time they spiraled around a gaping circular chasm, with only the smallest rail, less than a meter high, to stop one from tumbling to one’s death. Beyond the occasional bit of outer wall encasing the staircase was a pitch black void, and fog enshrouded the steps.

“Okay, never mind.” Mondo moved a hand to close the door again. “That ain’t happening.”

Kiyotaka lodged his boot in the doorframe, preventing it from closing. “Oh, yes it is. There’s no other way out.”

“How the hell can you know that?” Mondo asked incredulously.

“I have learned by now that if a door is unlocked, it is the correct way to proceed,” Kiyotaka explained. “The path has been laid out for us. We have to go this way.” He paused. “I won’t let you fall, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Mondo muttered a series of unintelligible protests under his breath, but he followed Kiyotaka through the door all the same. They began to pace slowly through the fog-shrouded stairwell.

“I think there’s a fuckin’ corpse hanging from the ceiling,” Mondo observed after a short while.

Kiyotaka resisted the urge to look. “Ignore it,” he advised.

There was a silence. “I can’t,” Mondo said at last. “It’s kinda distracting.”

Kiyotaka grabbed his arm. “Look at your feet,” he snapped. “You’re going to fall off.”

“Oh. Shit. You’re right.” Mondo took a cautious step backwards.

“Look, there’s another door just ahead.” Kiyotaka breathed a sigh of relief.

“Great!” Mondo exclaimed, starting to sound slightly hysterical. “I’ll bet there’s _two_ corpses in there!”

“I’m sure there isn’t.” Kiyotaka took the last step and turned the handle. “Come on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one turned out a bit darker than the chapters preceding. It's not exactly living up to the "comedy" part of "dark comedy", is it?


	10. Return to the Subway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. I've finally exhausted all I had written when I began posting this, so updates may be slower from now on. I have some great plans for the endings, though, so I shall not be giving up.

“This is the subway again!” Kiyotaka exclaimed in surprise.

“The what?” Mondo stared around at the grungy walls. “What subway?”

“I met Chihiro here earlier, and…he…” Kiyotaka trailed off as he saw the color drain from Mondo’s face. “Ah. Right.”

“Wait, when was this?” Mondo demanded.

“A short time before I met up with you,” Kiyotaka admitted. “He…he very shortly died again.”

Conflicted rage crossed Mondo’s face. “You.. He was _alive,_ and _you_ let him die again?!” His fists trembled, and he took a painstaking step away from Kiyotaka, who looked neither scared nor indignant at the barely-contained, man-shaped mass of fury before him.

“Yes,” was all he said, meeting Mondo’s eyes and trying to broadcast a silent apology. “That is why I cannot take the moral high ground over you.”

“Did you leave him _alone_?!” Mondo hissed. “Or did you just _watch_ while some fucking freaks of nature _clawed him to pieces_ , because youdidn’t care about _him_ enough to get your fucking Moral Compass _hands_ dirty?!”

“We got separated accidentally,” Kiyotaka said levelly, distancing himself entirely from the agony inside. Someone had to be the rational one around here. “I tried to locate him again, but it was too late. I accept full responsibility. Un…” He took a deep breath. “…Unlike you, I had no…excuse. I was merely careless. Distracted. I won’t let it happen again.”

“ _Excuse_?!” Mondo stared at him, as if unsure whether to be incredulous or to continue being angry. “ _I_ had an excuse? Wh-what the hell excuse did I _have_?!”

“You– You– You-you-you–“ Kiyotaka was rendered even more speechless than he had been after Celeste’s snide remark about butter. “You– you _had_ one!” Saying the words aloud again assured himself of their veracity, and he continued: “We were in a situation specifically tailored for murder! It– It was all Monokuma’s fault!”

“Yeah?” Mondo narrowed his eyes. “So how come _you_ never killed anybody?”

“I…wasn’t put in a situation that would…” Kiyotaka began, but he stopped. That was a lie. He was reasonably certain that he _wouldn’t_ have killed anyone in Mondo’s situation. He could not, in good conscience, tell his best friend – his _only_ friend – a lie. “No… You… _don’t_ have an excuse. You are a murderer.” The words ricocheted back into his brain the moment he said them, slicing easily through the web of rationalizations he had built.

What they completely failed to slice away was something that still didn’t belong. Something that didn’t logically fit with everything else he knew. That…that _thing_ , the _thing_ that stood for Mondo in his mind, a brotherly bond, he’d thought it was… It didn’t go away. Which was simply insane. You didn’t _respect_ a murderer. You didn’t _admire_ a murderer. You didn’t _love_ a murderer.

“Yeah,” said Mondo, before Kiyotaka had quite enough time to process that last thought. “I’m a murderer. I’m glad we agree.”

“Can we…” – Kiyotaka closed his eyes and inhaled deeply; he opened them again when he was positive that no tears were in danger of falling – “…forget this discussion ever happened? At least until we are in a less perilous situation?”

“Yes!” Mondo exclaimed immediately. “I don’t wanna – I mean, what were we talkin’ about just now?” He laughed in such a forced fashion that Kiyotaka actually winced.

They began, once again, to walk down the hall. Kiyotaka, unfortunately, was doing a very poor job of forgetting that discussion had ever happened. He had figured something out, he was sure, but what _was_ it? Why did the world make more sense now? And why did that only make him more miserable? _Mondo’s alive_ , he told himself. He had been sure that would solve everything, in those desperate moments between the execution and opening that door in the hospital. But it felt like a joke. Like reality taunting him, waving Mondo in Kiyotaka’s face before surely taking him away again. There was a catch somewhere. There was _always_ a catch. Happiness, in Kiyotaka’s experience, always soured.

“Holy shit,” he heard Mondo gasp, and Kiyotaka knew that meant the catch must have arrived. Or one of them, anyway.

So he looked up. And up again. And kept looking up until he saw the head of the ghostly giant floating in front of the turnstile. It made Sakura look tiny. Muscles protruded from its limbs at every angle, the tattered remains of a shirt barely covered its powerful chest, and curtains of golden hair hung from its head, shielding its face from view. Until it lunged.

“ _Chihiro_?!” Kiyotaka exclaimed in utter disbelief, as he caught sight of the face for just a moment. He stared at the giant’s clothes, and he confirmed that, indeed, they bore a certain resemblance to those Chihiro had worn.

“Are you _insane_?” Mondo yelled, pulling Kiyotaka out of the giant’s path. “ _Chihiro_? What –“ And then the giant turned, pushing his hair out of his eyes to glare in their direction. “Oh, god,” Mondo muttered. “I – What – How –“

The giant roared – Kiyotaka could have sworn he felt blood in his ears – and lunged again, this time towards Mondo, who was frozen in shock. Like lightning, the giant’s fist struck out, punching Mondo not _in_ the face, but _through_ the face, his clenched, transparent fingers disappearing into his cheek for a split second. Mondo recoiled as if he had been struck by something solid, letting out a grunt of pain.

Like the idiot he was, Kiyotaka made the same mistake he’d made earlier, the mistake that had led to the visceral scene he supposed still filled the hospital hallway. ( _Who’s going to have to clean that up?_ Kiyotaka wondered guiltily _._ ) It was a mistake that had led to such emotional upheaval that there was simply no _way_ it could be repeated. Yet he did it, anyway. He got angry.

 _Why_ had he brought the steel pipe with him? Kiyotaka pondered this as his swing passed through the giant’s transparent torso. The torso’s owner let out a roar as if the pipe had actually struck something, and, in clear defiance of every video game AI ever, turned back to Mondo. The unarmed Mondo, who was not hitting him with a steel pipe, or, indeed, doing anything particularly aggressive at all.

Although Kiyotaka had never played a video game in his life, logic dictated that there was something very wrong about this. Why go after the man who was not an immediate threat? The giant had no reason to.

“Shit, I’m really, _really_ sorry, okay?!” Mondo had his back to the wall now, as the giant continued to advance on him.

The giant had no reason to. Chihiro did.

“RUN! THAT WAY!” Kiyotaka pointed sharply down the hall. While Mondo began to obey, Kiyotaka leapt at the giant and struck it again. He had a third swing lined up when he felt a hand grab his arm.

“Don’t!” Mondo shouted from behind him.

Kiyotaka turned to look into his lavender eyes, and saw that this was something Mondo was going to be very emphatic about. He dropped the pipe, and they ran.

Kiyotaka soon found himself staring at the winces Mondo’s face contorted into every other step. His ankle couldn’t have healed that quickly, could it? _Oh_. No. It _couldn’t_. Kiyotaka felt a surge of admiration. And it hurt. True, it was only a bit of physical pain, but he needed so much to alleviate it. He needed to fix it, needed Mondo to stop wincing. Why couldn’t _he_ be the one with the broken ankle?

What if Kiyotaka _was_ the one with the broken ankle? The idea played out in his mind, and he just didn’t know. He didn’t _know_ if he could have done it. No, who was he kidding? Of _course_ he couldn’t have done it. He would have fallen to his knees within the first few meters, huddled on the floor like the pathetic mess he was. And then Mondo would die. Again. And it would be _all_ Kiyotaka’s fault this time, no room for arguments. Because he couldn’t just grit his teeth and _take_ –

“Hey!” Kiyotaka felt a hand jerk him aside. “You almost ran into the fucking wall!”

And that! _And that! How_ could he have been so irresponsible, getting lost in self-pity when they were in a dangerous situation?! And the strain pulling his arm must have put on Mondo’s ankle! He was such an _idiot_! What was _wrong_ with –

“What the hell!” Kiyotaka felt the same hand jerk him aside. “Ya just did it _again_!”

Kiyotaka was so appalled at himself that he didn’t even bother with the self-lecture this time; he just shut his mind down and _ran._

“Door,” he said shortly in a clipped, emotionless tone. He stopped running and wrenched it open.

“Hey, are you okay?” Mondo limped inside, and Kiyotaka snapped the door shut behind him. “You’ve been acting real weird, and – Fuck, it’s _him_!”

 _He_ didn’t say anything. Silently, his red eyes blazing, he raised a gun. Where had he gotten a gun?

Kiyotaka felt a good deal like mauling the white-haired man into a bloody pulp for various reasons, but he restrained himself. Grabbing Mondo’s hand, he set his sight on the door on the other end of the small room, and, yet again, ran.

Open. Let Mondo through. Close. It was mind-numbing. And now they were in the foggy stairwell again, thankfully without the company of any corpses. Good. No distractions.

They walked down the spiral in silence, and went through yet another _door_. Kiyotaka felt like screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a complete inability to stick to a tone. Just when it starts to get angsty, I end up throwing in a sudden comedic diversion, and vice-versa. Sorry about that.


	11. Return to the Forest (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I agonized for a bit about splitting up this section, but I decided that it had been too long since an update already, and I wasn't about to perpetuate the delay any further. Wordcount-per-area has really been picking up since Mondo actually showed up, anyway, and this section ended up getting particularly out of hand.

The first thing Mondo did was collapse onto the ground, clutching his ankle.

A graveyard, thought Kiyotaka, stubbornly refusing to make a few key connections in his head. They were in a graveyard. More specifically, it was the very same graveyard he had first encountered Kiyondo in. Celeste’s death flashed in his mind. He supposed he ought to be feeling guilty about that, but there were only so many things a man could feel guilty about at a given time, and Kiyotaka had reached that limit long ago.

“Hey.” Mondo spoke at this point.

“Yes?” Kiyotaka replied, glad to have a conversation to occupy his mind.

“Why is there…” Mondo squinted at something. “…Some kid’s diary written on those tombstones?”

“What?” Kiyotaka followed his gaze to the crumbling slabs of rock, and found that he had no idea what Mondo was talking about. True, now that he was looking at them, the tombstones _did_ appear to have writing on them, but… “But that’s utterly indecipherable!” Kiyotaka gasped.

“You’d prolly say the same thing if you saw _my_ handwriting,” Mondo pointed out wryly.

Kiyotaka shook his head. “No, this is far beyond sloppy penmanship! Why, I can’t even tell if it’s Japanese!”

Mondo snorted. “‘Course it is! Not like I know any _other_ languages, is it?”

Kiyotaka knelt in front of one of the graves. “This,” – he jabbed a finger into a particularly messy symbol – “is _not_ Japanese! This isn’t English, either! And it isn’t Korean, Russian, or Arabic! This is just gibberish!”

“Damn, you actually _know_ all those?” Mondo asked incredulously.

“Well, no!” Kiyotaka admitted. “I would, however, recognize their alphabets if I saw them! I suppose it’s possible that it’s a more obscure language – But that’s not the point! You still shouldn’t be able to read it!”

“Well, I’m tellin’ you I can,” Mondo said stubbornly. “And I don’t get how you can say that ain’t Japanese. Looks pretty clear to me.”

Kiyotaka opened his mouth, and then closed it again, frowning. He had no explanation for this. It was, like most things nowadays, utterly bizarre, and it defied all logic. “What does it say?” he asked at last.

“Uh, it says…” Mondo took a deep breath. “‘Last night I got tired early, and studied for two hours instead of three. I know that was wrong. Father said it was okay, but I don’t believe him. I won’t let it happen again.’”

“Attitudes such as that are hard to come by,” Kiyotaka observed. “The writer is unusually perceptive.”

“Yeah…” Mondo said slowly. “Do you want me to read the next one?”

“All right.” It was strange: the writing had said nothing incorrect – in fact, Kiyotaka agreed with it most strongly – but hearing it had made him very uneasy, and he could not place why.

Mondo had fixed his gaze on another tombstone. “This one says, uh…. ‘I think the other boys don’t like me. They go quiet when I’m around. They act like I’m sick, and they’re afraid they’ll catch it. But I don’t know what ‘it’ is.’”

Kiyotaka’s breath caught in his throat. This couldn’t be possible.

Now Mondo was looking at yet another tombstone. “‘A girl asked me something very strange today. She said she heard in the news that a policeman had gotten shot yesterday. She asked if it was Father. I said no. She said that was a shame. What did she mean?’”

“Is there any more?” Kiyotaka asked, trying to keep his voice level. He was reading into things. Really, he was _such_ an egotist sometimes. There was no _way_ this was about –

“‘I hate my grandfather. I hate him. I don’t care if he’s family. I still hate him, and I’m glad he’s – ‘“

“Stop.” Kiyotaka’s voice came out strangled, and far more desperate than he had intended.

Mondo looked away from the tombstones, and frowned at him in concern. “What’s the matter?”

Everything, Kiyotaka wanted to reply. Everything was the matter. “Please don’t read any more,” was all he said.

“Is it, like…” Mondo hesitated. “Is it too much like you, or something? Because of the studying and the grandfather? It’s just a coincidence, ya know. Lots of people have grandfathers.”

Kiyotaka decided to let the inanity of that statement slide. “Yes,” he agreed. “They do.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“We have to keep moving.” Kiyotaka stared at the wall. “That man may still be chasing us.”

“…Wait.” Mondo struggled to his feet. “Was that…? Shit, that was actually about _you_ , wasn’t it?”

“It couldn’t possibly be about me,” said Kiyotaka, with absolutely no certainty whatsoever. “That would make no sense. I never even kept a diary.”

“Ya said that me being able to read it made no sense, too!” Mondo pointed out. His voice became slightly quieter. “I mean… Just… Taka, did anything I just read _not_ happen to you?”

“No,” Kiyotaka was forced to say, because the alternative would be lying. It wasn’t just that the writing on the tombstones didn’t contradict any facts about his life; if he was to be perfectly honest with himself, Kiyotaka clearly remembered thinking every word. When it came right down to it, that was what was making him feel so ill. There was something, some part of the universe, that knew exactly what had been inside his head at age nine, and that left Kiyotaka feeling unspeakably violated.

“Look, I’m sorry I read it.” Mondo reached out to touch Kiyotaka’s arm. “It’s none of my business. I won’t look at any more of them, okay?”

“It’s perfectly all right, bro,” Kiyotaka said firmly, trying very, _very_ hard to look Mondo in the eye, and only just managing it. “I consider myself entirely open to you!” Which was true. There was, however, a difference between keeping no secrets from someone and having one’s mind forced open and its naked contents handled by unknown fingers before being left out in the open air, bared to wind, sun, and the devouring eyes of any passerby. Or… _was_ it any passerby? There was a significant likelihood that Mondo was the only person who could read the writing on the tombstones. Was that comforting? Kiyotaka came to the conclusion that it was definitely _something_ , but perhaps “comforting” wasn’t quite the right word.

In the time between Kiyotaka looking Mondo in the eye and his coming to that conclusion, Mondo’s face appeared to have grown redder. “You were prolly right about that dude following us,” he mumbled. “We should go.”

Kiyotaka was all too happy to comply. He breathed a silent sigh of relief when they had closed the gates to the graveyard behind them, for in the process they had also closed the gates on that nasty, masochistic little compulsion in the corner of Kiyotaka’s mind which felt the burning need to know just how thorough the invasion really was. It was gone now, that involuntary contraction of muscles which had nearly made his tongue form the words _keep reading_. He could breathe without inhaling the suffocating weight that was so similar, and yet so alien, to a conscience.

Abruptly, Kiyotaka’s still-raw brain was penetrated through the eardrums by the loud report of a pistol. He whirled around, his eyes frantically roving the dark, forested path behind. _There_. A flash of white. He knew what that meant. “Run!” he hissed to Mondo, who didn’t need to be asked twice.

Feet pounded into hardened soil as the perpetual chase which had been occupying Kiyotaka’s life as of late resumed. Luckily for his sanity and Mondo’s ankle, there was another gate visible ahead. The pair charged through, and then slammed it shut behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, this was actually intended as a humorous interlude. Unfortunately, this fell to pieces once I got to writing what the tombstones actually said. I probably should have included more quotes, but I hate writing from the perspective of children; it always feels so cheap, and like I'm appealing too much to emotions. I feel like the quotes I did include skirt far too close to the whole "angsty childhood" thing, which I wish to avoid at all costs. But I worry that I avoided it a little too vigorously, and that the quotes seem underwhelming in light of Ishimaru's reaction. As you can probably tell, I'm riddled with insecurities about this chapter.


	12. Return to the Forest (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I have an excuse for this one taking so long. I was desperately trying to think of something witty to do with the Pickaxe of Despair. Eventually, however, I gave up thinking of something witty, so it's just sort of there. Oh well. In other news, I'm getting really tired of writing about running and opening doors. I guess that's the problem with basing one's plot on a video game.  
> And yes, I've starting adding illustrations to the earlier chapters! I've done the first two so far, but expect more soon.

Kiyotaka leaned against the gate, breathing heavily. This entire day had been nothing but one brutal assault after another, and all that his once-indomitable willpower wanted to do was curl up in the corner and die. He noticed almost subconsciously that he recognized this area as well; it was mainly dominated by the charred remains of the abandoned house into which he had unwisely followed Celeste. Should he tell Mondo about that? No. That would be inadvisable. It would only lead to more strife, further strain the already-taut threads of their relationship, and cause both of them emotional stress that neither could really handle at the moment.

“I met Celeste here earlier,” Kiyotaka found himself saying despite all this, because he was really beyond caring. “She died.”

Mondo looked at him.

Kiyotaka answered the unspoken question with “It was around 15% my fault,” which would have been funny at any other time. Right now it was just pathetic.

“That’s not too bad,” said Mondo, in the weakest attempt at comfort Kiyotaka had ever heard. “You’d need over fifty or something for it to be murder.”

“You’re making that up,” Kiyotaka informed him.

“Yeah, well,” Mondo retorted, “you made up your number, too.”

Kiyotaka didn’t know what to say to that. He opted to not say anything, and instead began to pace across to the other gate.

“Seriously, though,” Mondo called after him, taking a few steps in his direction. “Are you, like, okay? You’ve been real weird lately, and it feels like everything that’s been happenin’ was made to fuck with your head. You’re not lettin’ it get to you, are ya?”

Something about these words dumped an entire bucket of highly corrosive acid over the tightly-wound knot of tension and misery in Kiyotaka’s stomach, and as he turned back to look at Mondo, he very nearly smiled. “Of course I’m not,” he said. “I just want to keep moving.” He gestured towards the gate.

Mondo did not look entirely convinced, but he followed Kiyotaka through the gate all the same.

There it was, standing frozen like a statue. One of those two-headed things from the prison. Mondo screamed, but Kiyotaka didn’t. He was getting quite used to this sort of thing.

Despite the scream, the creature stood still. “ _Receiver_ …” was clearly heard, despite the fact that neither pair of lips had moved.

“What the hell,” Mondo squeaked. “What’s it supposed to _be_?!”

“I don’t know,” Kiyotaka confessed. “I do, however, believe it will start moving if we get any closer to it.”

“So we run?” Mondo guessed wearily.

Kiyotaka nodded, and they both took off. Immediately, a series of loud thuds came from behind. Kiyotaka noted with worry that the time between each thud was slightly shorter than the time between his own footfalls. He tried to run faster, mentally counting the sounds.

This was a bad idea, for Kiyotaka was now so focused on this that he had forgotten to look where he was going. His foot caught on a rod of some kind, and he fell to the ground. He rolled over, sat up, and saw what he had tripped over, all in less than a second. He lunged for the axe, for that’s what it was, ignored the stinging in his hands, and staggered to his feet, just as the creature got within a yard of him.

Kiyotaka shut down his brain for what happened next, and didn't turn it back on again until he had averted his eyes from the creature's motionless form. He stared at the axe in his hand. "It says 'despair' on the handle," he informed Mondo.

"What?" Mondo's voice was faint, and Kiyotaka could see that he was also trying to tear his eyes away from the creature, with rather less success than Kiyotaka himself. "You're kiddin'."

"I am doing nothing of the sort." Kiyotaka observed with an odd sense of pride how much firmer his own voice was than Mondo's. "It is printed quite clearly." He tilted the axe so that Mondo could see it.

"Well." Mondo looked at it. "Fuck."

"Exactly," Kiyotaka said with sympathy, which was a first in the category of "Kiyotaka's reactions to Mondo's swearing". "Now, do I drop it here, or shall I continue to carry it with me?"

"Drop it," Mondo advised. "Monokuma prolly put it there somehow."

"Yes, that does seem likely." Kiyotaka knelt down and carefully laid the axe on the ground. For some reason, however, his fingers would not let go of the handle, and he had to pry them off with his other hand. Finally, he stood up straight and continued walking down the path.

Mondo followed, running a bit to catch up to him. "Hey, do you need to throw up again? Because, uh, last time – "

"I'm fine," Kiyotaka assured him. "Last time was different. I was actually paying attention, a mistake I won't make again."

"Right. Okay..." Mondo sounded dubious, but he did not press further, which Kiyotaka was thankful for. If he pressed further, he might be forced to recall what had transpired when he'd used the axe, and Kiyotaka was currently doing a spectacular job of repressing that.

The forest, meanwhile, was beginning to thin out, and soon a lake became visible. Standing in front of the lake was...

"Kiyondo Ishida?" Kiyotaka called.

The boy turned, and for the first time, he spoke. "Yeah." His voice was oddly deep.

"Do you know where your parents are?" asked Kiyotaka, not anxious to be responsible for a child.

"Dead," said the boy succinctly. "But they don't matter, 'cause I'm gonna see my brother soon."

"Where is your brother?"

"In his room. Duh." The boy rolled his eyes. "I've gotta leave. Bye, stupid." And with that, he was gone, running off into the woods until the darkness swallowed him.

"That was rude!" Kiyotaka exclaimed, ignoring the odd feeling in the back of his mind that he should really know who Kiyondo was.

Mondo frowned. "Yeah, but shouldn't we go after him? The kid's gonna get himself killed by himself out here."

"Of course. You're right."

Back in the forest, the first individual they came across was not the boy, but Celeste. On fire.

Kiyotaka quickly scanned the area for an escape route, and as he was doing this, he saw an even bigger problem. The rocks and tree stumps in the area were covered in nonsensical red scribblings. Kiyotaka's breath caught in his throat. They really _did_ have to get out of there, and fast.

So they ran for the thousandth time, and Kiyotaka resolved to himself never to ask Mondo if he'd noticed the writing, let alone read it. But of course he hadn't. There hadn't been time. Had there?

With the closing of another gate, they were back by the house. Mechanically, trying to put some distance between himself and Mondo so that he would be less tempted to ask the question buzzing in his brain, Kiyotaka walked in the general direction of the ruins.

It was then that he noticed, in the midst of the wreckage, the stairs leading underground. "This way," he called to Mondo, certain that it was the way forward.

It was indeed the way forward, for at the bottom of the stairs and behind another door was the foggy stairwell.

"There's a sheep," said Mondo, once they had closed the door again. "There is seriously a fucking sheep."

Kiyotaka could not resist the urge to look. He was right. In a recess in the wall there stood a living, breathing sheep. He wasn't sure if this reflected some deep, tortured part of his subconcious or if reality had given up on that and was just being random. Either way, there wasn't much to do about it, and he continued walking down the steps.

"It's kinda a shame to just leave it there," Mondo commented, plodding behind him. "Who knows what'll happen to it?"

"We are not taking a sheep with us," Kiyotaka said firmly.

Mondo just sighed as they went through the next door.


	13. Return to the Water Prison (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I actually wrote another chapter. I've been writing so much Vocaloid fanfiction lately that I kept typing "Kiyoteru" instead of "Kiyotaka". Very Freudian. Thank you for the encouragement, everyone who's been commenting. It really did help me get back to this fic. (Oh, and if you go back to the first chapter, there's some recent notes about illustrations and the change in rating, in case anyone wants to see that.)

“The next door”, as it turned out, led into an elevator. Ah, thought Kiyotaka. Just what was needed. An awkward elevator scene.

It was awkward, all right. He and Mondo stared at each other out of the corners of their eyes, never quite looking at the other directly. Mondo made a noise as if he were about to say something, but he didn’t, much to Kiyotaka’s relief. That meant he had time to think.

But as soon as he started thinking, the relief abandoned him and he felt he would rather Mondo had engaged him in some inane conversation after all. The pattern. It was clear now: subway, forest, prison, city, Hope’s Peak, hospital, subway, forest… Kiyotaka _knew_ what went next. And he wished he didn’t. Mondo had blown up at him over Chihiro. He had seemed mildly shaken by Celeste. Skipping ahead a little, he might even _applaud_ Byakuya's death. But… But…

Kiyotaka wanted out. He wanted out of this whole situation. He would rather be back in Mondo’s bed, crying and _alone,_ than be forced to look a living Mondo in the eye and tell him that he’d let his brother die again. He wasn’t at all afraid for himself – Mondo could flat-out murder him in response and Kiyotaka would accept it gladly. Seeing Mondo’s face was the only thing he feared. Kiyotaka knew that he was incapable of comprehending how he would feel – his only frame of reference was losing Mondo himself, someone he’d known for a couple of weeks. Daiya had been Mondo’s _actual family_ , practically his _only_ family from what Kiyotaka had heard, and he’d been closer to Mondo than Kiyotaka could ever be.

“Damn, you look even more miserable than usual.”

Kiyotaka whirled around to face Mondo. “I… Ah…”

Mondo winced. “Uh, shit, sorry, was that, like, insensitive? I…don’t _like_ seein’ you miserable, ya know.”

“For heaven’s sake, Mondo, stop coddling me!” Kiyotaka snapped. He saw Mondo’s expression and hastily added, “I mean – Thank you for your concern, bro! It’s nothing! I was thinking about something…completely irrelevant!” He tried to laugh, but not a single sound came out.

Mondo opened his mouth, but not a single sound came out of _that_ either, for, at that moment, the elevator doors slid open.

Without sparing each other a glance, the pair stepped out. They were in a small, circular room.

“Ugh, hate places like this…” Mondo was muttering.

“You don’t like cylinders?” Kiyotaka asked somewhat stupidly, his mind fully on other matters.

“Uh… No, I mean cramped, dark…” Mondo gestured at the walls that seemed to be almost closing in on them. “I don’t like it.”

Kiyotaka felt more foolish than ever, because of course he _knew_ that full well. He’d dwelled on it himself earlier. “I’m…sorry,” he said awkwardly.

“Ya wanna do something about it, there’s a _door_ right there.” Mondo gestured again, this time more precisely.

Kiyotaka looked, and there was a door in plain sight. He was really losing it, he thought to himself as he stepped towards it. He opened the door.

 _And there he was._ Just like before.

“Oh, fuck, _again_?!” Mondo exclaimed in a higher voice than usual.

Kiyotaka said nothing. He merely grabbed Mondo’s hand, like before, and ran to the _next_ door, like before, through which they promptly went, like before.

They both leaned against the other side of that door, breathing heavily.

“D’you know who he is?” Mondo asked after they had caught their breath. “Ya sure you didn’t have a twin or somethin’?”

“No, I did _not_ have a twin,” Kiyotaka said flatly. He couldn’t focus. That ghost could show up at any moment… “I had never seen him before this… _escapade_ began.”

“’Escapade’!” Mondo scoffed.

Yet another awkward silence fell.

With enormous willpower, Kiyotaka wrenched himself away from the door. Things were moving inexorably forward. He knew trying to dodge them would be no use. He was just about to head for the ladder when he realized something: He’d told Mondo about Chihiro and Celeste ahead of time, before their ghosts had shown up. However he looked at it, _not_ doing the same thing here would only make things even _worse_.

Kiyotaka cleared his throat. “You may have noticed a pattern, Mondo: Both the subway and the forest were places I had been to previously, and I had seen someone die at each. Those people later reappeared as what appeared to be ghosts.”

Mondo’s eyes widened. “Oh… I get where this is goin’. And this time it’s…?”

Kiyotaka, somehow, made eye contact. “This time it’s your brother.”

Mondo just stood there, frozen. “How – “ His tone became a little more aggressive. “How do ya _know_ it was him?! You’ve never met him!”

“He said his name was Daiya Owada.” Kiyotaka was still managing eye contact. “He looked and sounded like you.” He decided _not_ to mention what Daiya had said. It may have been good-natured, but Mondo didn’t need that. “I saw him once, and then he ran off. I followed him, but he was dead by the time I caught up.”

Mondo had barely moved a muscle since the conversation began. “ _It…ain’t…your…fuckin’…fault._ ” He hissed those words through his teeth, so quietly that Kiyotaka couldn’t tell if he was only talking to himself. He looked directly at Kiyotaka. “ _Wasn’t_ your fault…” His voice was wavering, and there was an unmistakable dark undercurrent of barely repressed rage. “…Bro.”

Kiyotaka stared back at him, unable to take his eyes off Mondo’s tortured countenance. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve this kind of forgiveness. He didn’t deserve all the anguish Mondo was heaping upon himself for _his_ sake. Mondo _was_ the kindest person he had ever met. And Kiyotaka didn’t deserve him. He finally turned away, back towards the ladder. “I am sorry.” The words sounded laughably inadequate. “His ghost is probably going to show up, and I…thought you should know ahead of time.”

“Thanks.” Mondo could not have sounded less grateful.

“We should keep moving.” Kiyotaka took a step in the ladder’s direction. Then he froze and immediately turned to face Mondo again. “Wait… I’m sorry. You can’t climb ladders, can you?” He pointed at Mondo’s left arm, then at his ankle.

“I can too climb ladders!” Mondo snapped, the undertone of rage now gone and replaced with an overt expression of such. “I’ll just hold onto the damn thing with one hand! And it can’t be any worse for my ankle than _walkin’_!”

Kiyotaka just shook his head. “We’ll take the long way around.”

“We’ll _take_ the fucking _ladder_!”

“ _Fine!_ ” Kiyotaka glared at him in annoyance, yet also contrition and a certain amount of respect. “But if you injure yourself in any way, we are going to _stop_ taking the ladder that instant! You understand?”

Mondo gave a sullen nod.

They took the ladder.

Kiyotaka went first, and while he was climbing down, he heard Mondo’s voice:

“Hey… There any other people you saw die, or was it just…those three?”

“There was one more.” Kiyotaka took another step down.

“…Who?” Mondo’s voice was tense and strangled, and it took him some time to get the word out.

“Byakuya.”

There was a silence.

And then Kiyotaka heard from above a burst of dark, sardonic laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry this is so short, especially after such a long wait, but this was such a perfect stopping place. I can almost guarantee the next wait won't be anywhere near as long, if that helps. I seem to have broken through my writer's block.


	14. Return to the Water Prison (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for yet another unexpected absence. You see, right after I posted the previous chapter, my favorite Vocaloid was updated for the first time since his release in 2009, which kept me distracted for a while ([one of the things I did with him is actually relevant to this fanfiction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAyNqar2GNg)), and after that I made quite a few actual good friends for the first time in my life, which kept me _really_ distracted, but here I am, finally. At least it didn't take seven months! And this chapter is a lot longer than the last one.
> 
> Thanks go to [ninata](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ninata) for giving me some ideas, keeping me motivated, and catching one of the many times I called Ishimaru "Kiyoteru".

Kiyotaka helped Mondo off the ladder when they had reached the bottom. He was obviously in pain, but Kiyotaka decided not to say anything.

There was a door. They went through it.

They were in that not-quite-a-hallway from the prison again. Kiyotaka had expected as much. He was getting good at predicting these things. Of course, perhaps that was only because these things were getting so very predictable.

Kiyotaka took one step and froze. _Not again_. The depths of the despair with which he thought those two words were unfathomable.

“God, not _that_ fuckin’ thing!” Well, not unfathomable to Mondo, perhaps.

Kiyotaka was unarmed. This had its bad sides and its good sides. On one hand, that might very well get Mondo killed. _Again_. On the other hand, maybe this would force them to be resourceful and Kiyotaka could avoid traumatizing himself. But then, if he pulled _that_ off, the bloodshed on the prior two occasions would look more senseless than ever.

This was a miserable no-win situation, and Daiya hadn’t even shown up yet.

Left with no way to make this pleasant, Kiyotaka defaulted to practical. “Turn around,” he said in a low, steady tone to Mondo. “We shall go the other direction.”

Mondo had zero complaints about this, turning his back on the twin monster – or was it mon _sters_? – immediately and beginning to limp in, as Kiyotaka had ordered, the other direction.

Kiyotaka gave the thing one last look over his shoulder. It was frozen in place, like the others of its kind had been, and he couldn’t help finding _something_ familiar about its twisted faces. Something that led to even darker places in a locked-up corner of his mind. What he’d done with the axe in the forest was beginning to resurface, and with it came a sense of déjà vu more unsettling than the memory itself.

Kiyotaka’s mind screamed at him and slammed that locked door shut with a resounding clang. He looked away and followed Mondo.

“This place sucks,” Mondo hissed under his breath to Kiyotaka as he caught up. They walked a few paces. “Reminds me of when I was in juv – SHIT ANOTHER ONE!”

Kiyotaka didn’t look this time. He grabbed Mondo by his good arm and flung open the nearest door. Probably the only unlocked one on the floor. There was that creepy feeling of inescapable fate again.

Once they were both inside, Kiyotaka got the chance to literally slam a door shut with a resounding clang. He looked around the room which he was becoming more and more certain some higher power had guided him to. It was the one with the magnetizing hole.

“What the hell’s that hole for? Did someone dig that?” Mondo was asking incredulously.

Kiyotaka didn’t have an answer, but he did have another question. “Do you feel it?”

“…Feel what?”

Kiyotaka gestured at the hole. “Do you feel this urge to jump into it?”

“What the fuck?” Mondo gave him a strange look. “No! What’re you tryin’ to say?”

“I am trying to say that _I_ feel an urge to jump into it,” Kiyotaka replied crisply. “I had the same feeling when I was here before. I thought it was something about this room, but apparently it is something about me.”

Mondo responded to this by grabbing Kiyotaka’s upper arm and gripping it very firmly. “I _knew_ ya weren’t doing well! You’re not jumpin’ anywhere, got it?”

“I jumped before, and I landed entirely unharmed. I think it’s what I am supposed to do here.” Kiyotaka said this, but he didn’t try to escape Mondo’s grip.

“S’posed to do!” Mondo echoed in disbelief. “Your thing about rules can turn you into a real dumbass sometimes, Taka.”

Kiyotaka narrowed his eyes, and _then_ he shrugged off Mondo’s grip – no easy feat. But Kiyotaka was no slouch muscularly speaking himself. He was also no slouch in the courage department, and so he leapt straight down the hole, ignoring Mondo’s loud protesting.

He landed in another room, with another hole. He could still hear Mondo shouting above him. “I’m fine!” Kiyotaka called back. “But please stay where you are!”

“I’m _not_ gonna fucking – “

“For gosh sake, Mondo, swallow your pride!” Kiyotaka snapped. “Listen to me for once and _stay put_! Your masculinity will endure, I assure you!”

Mondo grumbled and swore a lot more but Kiyotaka could not hear his footsteps, so he nodded in satisfaction, considered his work done, and eyed the next hole.

In the next room, he couldn’t hear Mondo’s voice anymore. This was good news and bad news. The good news was that likely meant Mondo was obeying his orders and remaining safe. The bad news was that Kiyotaka was now _alone_ , with no deep reassuring profanities to smother all the dark thoughts his brain was overflowing with.

Kiyotaka could smell it again. His imagination was just too good. Without the scent of living Mondo around, it was coming back, filling his nostrils, making him want to vomit. No… His imagination wasn’t _that_ good. The smell was _really there_. Somehow. Well, everything _else_ about this place was hell. Why _wouldn’t_ this be added to the pile?

Images flashed before Kiyotaka’s eyes. A living, breathing, solid, humanoid Mondo wasn’t around to dispel them. So he just jumped again, because there was always another hole to go through. The cycles just didn’t end.

He was in a dark, damp cellar, and the smell was worse than ever. Kiyotaka pinched his nose, but somehow that wasn’t helping in the least. He tried to his best to just ignore the smell and looked around the room.

Thin yet bright – almost blinding – tendrils of pure white light were poking up from the floor like stalagmites, the only things between the cellar and pitch blackness. They twisted and jerked, emanating unbridled rage. They were giving Kiyotaka an excruciating headache, and he tried to look away, but there was nowhere to look away _to_. They were everywhere.

He could make out a door on one end of the room, though. He tried to run for it, but the toe of his boot brushed against one of the tendrils along the way.

Images bombarded his brain. People dying brutally, gruesomely, in pain, so fast that Kiyotaka couldn’t tell who they were. But it was all his fault, he knew _that_ much. He was the person, the _sole_ person responsible for every sickening thing he saw. Blood splattered, flames burned, electricity crackled, screams filled the air.

And then the whole sequence cut off with an abrupt snap, and Kiyotaka found himself lying face down on the damp hard floor. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, his head aching like someone had taken a hammer to it. His eyes strained in the blackness, and all he could see were the tendrils.

Kiyotaka pulled himself to his feet with great effort, taking immense care not to brush against any of them again. He managed it and maneuvered himself gingerly towards the door.

There were more on the other side. Kiyotaka found another door, and there were even more.

He lost track of time at that point. He was trapped in a perilous maze, his head was pounding, and he hadn’t the faintest idea how long he could last.

Kiyotaka eventually wound up in a circular corridor, crowded with more of the tendrils than ever. He crept past them, and as he proceeded, he saw a silhouette loom ahead in the blackness, floating several feet off the ground. The tendrils flickered especially brightly, and for a brief second the figure was illuminated.

Daiya. His face was a mottled, bloated mess, his eyes tiny pinpricks glistening with agony and hostility. His shirt was gone, and there were those same numbers still carved into his muscular abdomen: 18121.

Daiya unleashed a deep groan, nauseating to the ears, and charged.

Kiyotaka had no way of dealing with this, so he turned on his heel and ran in the opposite direction. He clambered up ladders and darted through doors, boundlessly thankful for the adrenaline which shut down his thoughts for once.

He stopped short when he realized he was in the same circular hallway-ish place he’d began in, the one with the twin monster and the room in which he’d left Mondo. He found that room before the monster could find him and slammed the door shut behind him.

Then Kiyotaka just stood there, drinking in the sight of a very bored and unharmed-looking man.

Mondo looked up from the floor and for a brief moment a smile crossed his face, but it was immediately replaced with worry. “Wow, Taka, you look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Then he seemed to catch himself. “Oh, fuck, ya _did_ see a ghost!”

“Precisely.” Kiyotaka tried to smile but realized that it probably looked deranged, so he quickly stopped trying.

Mondo didn’t say another word. He just strode across the room and wrapped his good arm around Kiyotaka, pulling him close.

Kiyotaka stood frozen still. It took him a moment to register that this was probably a “hug”. Mondo had never done that to him before, or anyone besides his father when he was a child for that matter. Sure, they’d flung their arms over each other’s shoulders, but that was a different feeling entirely from what was occurring at the moment.

Kiyotaka hesitantly put one his hands on Mondo’s back – both hands just seemed too far – and clenched his fist tightly in the fabric of his shirt. He was so _solid_ , so _real_ , so _warm,_ so _alive_. It was exactly what Kiyotaka needed. Some bizarre urges surfaced in the back of his mind, but he stamped them down firmly before they could even be identified.

Kiyotaka’s heartbeat had almost slowed down to a normal rate when Mondo abruptly jerked away. “So, uh, what the hell even happened?” he asked in a tone which sounded quite forced, looking at the wall and flushing. “Wanna talk about it?”

Kiyotaka would not let the subject be changed so easily. “Thank you so much for that hug, Bro! It made me feel a lot better!”

Mondo turned redder. “Sh – Shut the fuck – I – _What happened, anyway?_ ”

Kiyotaka let the subject change this time. He decided to give Mondo the short version. “I saw Daiya’s ghost.”

“I _figured_ ,” Mondo replied tersely. “We outta move onto whatever the next place is. Now.”

Kiyotaka nodded. “As soon as I can find the right door…”

“I hate doors.”

“So do I.”

They stared at each other for a minute.

“Let’s just _go_.” Mondo went for the door, grimacing as he opened it. “By the way, Taka, that was the dumbest idea you’ve ever had, jumpin’ down there. Did it help _anything_?”

“…No,” Kiyotaka admitted. Well, he supposed that he’d gotten the shock of seeing Daiya over for himself, at least, and he’d learned… _something_ in the cellar, but he’d really rather not bring up either of those things to Mondo. So he simply went silent and followed him out of the room.

– – –

They ran – or, in Mondo’s case, limped – aimlessly for a while, avoiding the twin monsters and cringing at every gunshot and flash of white hair.

But Kiyotaka held Mondo’s hand, and somehow he was able to remain calm the entire time.

He was able to remain calm the entire time _until_ the next door opened into a dark, circular corridor with rusty grates on the floor.

“So this’s where he is, huh?” Mondo asked in a hoarse whisper.

“How did you know?” Kiyotaka tried to whisper back, but he was very bad at whispering, and his words came out too loud anyway.

“You’re makin’ that ‘time to be miserable’ face.”

“Oh.” Kiyotaka looked at Mondo dubiously. Was he that readable? How troubling. He resolved to work on that in the future. _In the future,_ for _now_ it was time to be miserable.

He took a step forward, but Mondo was still holding onto his hand and he wasn’t budging, so he didn’t get far. Kiyotaka looked over his shoulder.

Mondo appeared desperate. “Hey, Taka, there’s another way around, ain’t there?”

“There isn’t another way.” Kiyotaka wasn’t sure how he knew this so certainly, but he did.

It was visible, the last glimmer of hope leaving Mondo’s eyes. Kiyotaka had seen that expression on him only once before, right before he was…

“We’d better go, then.” Mondo began to limp forward rather stiffly, and so Kiyotaka followed.

The sickening groans became audible, and Mondo turned pale.

Kiyotaka was rather distracted by awkwardly sidestepping one of those tendrils. He rubbed his forehead, wishing they would just _go away_ , whatever they were.

Mondo gave him a strange look. “Why’re you walkin’ funny?” He seemed relieved to have something else to focus on, if only for a minute.

“I was avoiding that _thing_.” Kiyotaka gestured vaguely at the tendril, unable to even look directly at it.

“What?” Mondo stared directly at it and didn’t seem affected at all. “It’s just another part of the floor…”

Kiyotaka furrowed his brow. This wasn’t adding up. “There’s a glowing white thing right there.”

“No,” Mondo replied shortly, “there ain’t.”

“You can’t see them.” It wasn’t a question. Kiyotaka sighed quietly. That wasn’t even a shock by this point. The world had stopped making any form of sense long ago.

“And now you’re hallucinatin’ shit!” Mondo exclaimed. “I’m telling you, bro, we need to find a way for you to get some rest or something.”

“It’s merely another anomaly of the area,” Kiyotaka said, somewhat testily. “Just like you…you were the only one who could…” He paused. “…Read that _writing_.”

There was a silence from Mondo for a moment, before he finally conceded, “You’re prolly right.”

At that point the conversation ran dry, and they were forced to keep walking.

And there he was – just floating in front of them, seemingly having been waiting.

Mondo choked. “I – I – “

“Just run,” Kiyotaka hissed.

“But I – Jesus, what happened to him?!”

“I don’t _know_!” Kiyotaka’s tone became more heated. “ _Run!_ ”

“I haven’t seen him in _years_!”

“He’s _dead_ , Mondo!” The words just slipped out. “There’s nothing we can do!”

“Well, I’m dead too, ain’t I?!”

Kiyotaka froze. “ _You’re_ – You’re… We’ll discuss this after we run!” He grabbed Mondo’s arm and forcibly dragged him past Daiya, who aimed a passing swipe at them, and down the corridor.

The resistance from Mondo became less and less, and soon they were running together with no one being dragged anywhere.

It was on the other side of a door that they resumed their debate.

“I know I’m dead, just like all those other people,” Mondo began. “And I know it seriously fucked you up.”

Kiyotaka swallowed thickly. “…You – you are, and…I suppose it did.”

Mondo took his hand, the motion seeming casual but the hand itself trembling considerably. “Why am _I_ the one who’s somehow still alive? Not a zombie, or whatever those damn things are.”

“I don’t know,” Kiyotaka said flatly. He didn’t know anything anymore, and he was done trying to figure it out. Mondo could keep doing a Makoto impression by himself.

“ _Why?!_ ” Mondo’s voice cracked. “It ain’t fair! Why me, and not someone innocent like Chihiro, or – or my brother?! Why’s it gotta be _me_?!”

Kiyotaka kept the next _I don’t know,_ to himself. _But I want it to be you. I’m glad it’s you. I’m not sure what I would do…if it hadn’t been._ He kept all of that to himself too. “There’s something going on. We’ll probably know what it is eventually. For now, we have to keep moving.”

“You ain’t doin’ okay,” Mondo observed for what felt like the thousandth time.

“Neither are you.” Kiyotaka managed a wan smile. “We make a good team, bro.”

“Sure,” Mondo mumbled noncommittally, looking embarrassed for some reason.

They entered the next room and dodged the horde of twin monsters in perfect unison. The better they got at avoiding them, the worse Kiyotaka felt about slaughtering the one in the forest, but he tried to let that go.

He was still failing at letting it go by the time they were in the stairwell again. It was darker now, and Kiyotaka could barely see a foot in front of him. _Things_ writhed and twitched in the corner of his vision.

“I don’t see any sheep this time,” said Mondo.

Kiyotaka rather wanted to hit him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea when the next chapter will happen, but I can promise it will be...sometime.
> 
> (I've been regretting some rather lazy authorial choices I made over the course of this fic, and now I kind of want to rewrite it from the beginning, but thankfully I'm resisting the urge at least until the story is 100% over.)


	15. Return to the Building (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S BEEN HALF A YEAR AGAIN, OOPS. I forced myself to make some progress today because it's Mondo's birthday (already over in Japan, but close enough). I wrote most of this...today. Hardly any in the past months. Yes, I hate my work ethic too.

“So!” Mondo was saying as they stepped through the door. “Byakuya, h – “

He was interrupted by a long, guttural groan that enveloped the entire area, echoing, reverberating, setting an ambience. It was impossible to determine the location of its source.

Luckily, there was no need to figure it out, for just then a dark figure swooped down from a building and hovered before them in midair.

Kiyotaka knew it was Byakuya without even having to look at him. It was just the obvious thing. He looked at him anyway, against his better judgement. His face was burnt and twisted beyond recognition, and his hair had been reduced to a few charred black strands, but somehow he was still wearing those glasses. The lenses were so smoked over and full of cracks that his eyes were not visible. If he even still had eyes… That would likely be up for debate.

Kiyotaka finally managed to wrench his own intact eyes away to look at Mondo, a far more attractive sight. He looked disgusted and there was a flicker of fear which was swiftly repressed, but overall he was relatively calm. That was good. Seeing Mondo upset all the time troubled him.

And there were enough troubling things going on already, what with Byakuya slowly approaching them. He paused for a moment, wracked with an uncontrollable spasm, before continuing in their direction as if nothing had happened.

Escape routes, escape routes… Yes, that one would work. “Mondo, let’s – What the heck are you doing?!” he demanded incredulously.

Mondo stood back up, clutching a small, dirty notebook in his hand. “I…dunno, actually. I _had_ to pick this thing up, ya see, just…RIGHT, SHIT, WE’RE RUNNING NOW.”

Kiyotaka leapt in the direction of his escape route. He could worry about notebooks some other time.

And there they were in another _elevator_. Wonderful. Figuring it was the best way to escape Byakuya, Kiyotaka swiftly pressed a button to take them to another floor.

They exited into a dimly lit, grimy alleyway. This did not suit Kiyotaka’s mental image of America, but then, neither did undead Japanese teenagers out for their blood.

“Looks kinda like the places I used to hang out in,” Mondo mumbled.

“Hm.” Then Kiyotaka remembered the notebook. “Could you please give me that thing you picked up? I want to look at it.”

Mondo handed it over with a brief “Sure.”

Kiyotaka flipped through it quickly and efficiently. Only one page had any writing on it. “Reminiscences…” he observed aloud. “Whoever wrote this appeared to be expressing nostalgia for some birthday they had. Something about a dog and playing pool… Mondo, why _did_ you pick this up?”

“I told ya already, I just sorta…had to.”

Kiyotaka frowned. “You would think that would mean it’s important, and that whatever force driving this surreal journey wanted us to notice it, but… It’s utterly irrelevant to our situation. What are we supposed to do with it?”

“I don’t – _wait a fuckin’ second_.” Mondo snatched the notebook back from him and scanned it urgently. “This is _exactly_ what my last birthday was like!”

The writing in the forest all over again, Kiyotaka realized. He supposed it was nice that things were more even, though this time around it was nowhere near as invasive. “Have you been thinking about that day at all lately?” he asked.

“No,” Mondo replied at once.

He was lying. Kiyotaka could _tell_ he was lying. He could feel the dishonesty with all five senses. But he decided to just let it drop. As they continued through the tangled, weaving streets and halls of the complex, the incident drifted to the back of his mind.

Until he saw Mondo lag behind to pick up something _else_. “Is that a billiard ball?” Kiyotaka inquired incredulously.

“I guess so.”

“You ‘guess so’?” This was getting too ridiculous. Kiyotaka almost wanted to laugh. “Whatever supernatural thing is going on, I am, if nothing else, bro, extremely concerned about your self-control.”

“Who _ain’t_ extremely concerned about my my self-control?” Mondo retorted. “Let’s just keep going.”

Kiyotaka sighed in exasperation, but keep doing they did, and around the corner, there was something _far_ more interesting than billiard balls.

In a cubicle behind a sheet of glass, Kiyondo and that violent white-haired maniac were standing there, staring each other down. They hadn’t noticed Kiyotaka and Mondo. They seemed able only to focus on each other.

“Holy shit! We have to get the kid away from him. He could kill him!” Mondo made a move forward, but Kiyotaka yanked him back by his good arm.

“Wait,” he said. “They seem to just be talking. I feel like we shouldn’t interfere, at least not yet.”

Mondo didn’t seem convinced, but just then Kiyondo’s voice rang out, silencing the pair of them.

“I’m gonna find my brother,” he was yelling at the man, “and you’re in my way. Move!” His strong tone faltered for a moment. “…And…who _are_ you?”

“I am Kiyondo Ishida,” the man intoned, his voice a furious hiss as ever. “And I am _almost done_.”

“That’s _my_ name!” Kiyondo – or rather, the child Kiyondo? – retorted. “Almost done with what, anyway?”

Kiyondo scoffed loudly. The flames surrounding his eyes flickered. “Oh, you’ll know damn well, in time. Now come on! Our brother needs us.” With nigh-superhuman speed, he grabbed the child and ran off with him down a dark corridor.

_Then_ Kiyotaka decided it was time to interfere, but it was too late. The door to the cubicle turned out to be locked, and man and boy both may as well have vanished into thin air.

Once he as past the obligatory frustrated cursing, Mondo began to look thoughtful. “So… They’re brothers? Or they’re the same person? But one tried to kill me and the kid saved me… Ugh, whatever. I don’t get any of this.”

“I must confess that _I_ do not ‘get any of this’ either.” Kiyotaka began pacing restlessly as he spoke. “It’s most likely that they’re the same person, somehow manifesting at two different points in his life. They look the same. They speak the same way, even their body language is alarmingly similar.”

“Ya could say the same things about the older one and _you_ ,” Mondo pointed out.

“…Could you?” Kiyotaka asked, surprised. “I realize we have the same face, but do we in any way _act_ the same?”

“You’ve got the same walk.”

“The same…walk?”

“Ya know, that…Taka way of walking.” Mondo seemed to be struggling to put it into words. “The sorta one-two, ‘I’d never run in the halls’, every fucking step is somehow the _exact_ _same length_ …kinda walking.”

Kiyotaka blinked at him in disbelief. “Well…! I shall take your word for it, but I had no idea you were so observant of these things! Do you recognize everyone by their walks?”

“Only really…noticed…yours…” Mondo mumbled, averting his eyes. “Uh… Hey, look, a volleyball!” he exclaimed, way too loudly.

“A… _Are you serious_?” Kiyotaka stalked over to where Mondo was picking up yet another useless object. “If you don’t stop doing this, you will be so weighed down by this paraphernalia that you will be unable to run. And you _do_ realize how important running is…?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll ditch them someplace if I have to.” Strangely, instead of looking at all abashed by this scolding, Mondo appeared distinctly relieved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another really short chapter... Gee. And I'm not sure about the writing quality either. At least I've affirmed that I am still alive and still (somewhat) capable of composing a story.
> 
> I messed with the "nostalgic notebook" subplot a bit because it was really boring, pointless, and irrelevant in the original game. I tried to make it tie into the story more and seem less like an arbitrary fetch quest.


	16. Return to the Building (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta love my semiannual update schedule.

Halls. More of them. Of all the things he could tire of, Kiyotaka never would have dreamed it would be _halls_ , yet there he was, tiring of them. Ah, well, at least here was a staircase to break up the monotony somewhat.

Break up the monotony it did. Peering over the rail with his characteristic caution, he observed what appeared to be a wild, frenzied pack of…wheelchairs. By this point he wasn’t even surprised.

“What’s the hold up?” he heard Mondo inquire impatiently.

Kiyotaka merely pointed.

“Oh, hell, just what we needed,” Mondo groaned. “A whole new level of creepy.”

“Just as long as they do not attack…” Kiyotaka took a step down.

It took a little longer than usual, but heavier and more uneven footsteps were soon heard behind him. Kiyotaka realized just how much he loved those footsteps. A reassuring constant, the only thing keeping him from losing what remained of his sanity to this dark place.

He did not have any more time to dwell on that, for he was approaching bottom of the stairs. He tensed as one of the wheelchairs zoomed right past the bottom step.

But for once, nothing happened. The wheelchairs swiveled around at random and their patterns did not change with his proximity. He could not let his guard down, however. In this place, everything was at stake at all times.

He didn’t want to be around constantly moving, unsettling, irrational danger incarnate. He wasn’t going to be around them if he could help it. “This way.”

It was not a complex task to escape the room devoid of wheel marks, but it _was_ a complex task to navigate the rest of the dark urban labyrinth. Where were they even trying to go? That was a question Kiyotaka hadn’t thought to ask in some time, and it had acquired no more answers since.

Mondo seemed to know better than he did – at that moment he pushed ahead and grasped the handle of a particular door, wrenching it open with a slight wince.

“…A bar.” Kiyotaka curled his lip in distaste.

Mondo gave him an awkward glance out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, is _that_ what this is? I wouldn’t know! Never been in one. Ever.”

Kiyotaka just sighed. He didn’t know why Mondo felt the need to lie about such trivial things at a time like this. Wait… How had he known he was lying? Why, yes, it had been obvious, but Kiyotaka had an unerring knack for completely missing the obvious when it came to social situations. …Or so he had always been told. Would he have been able to see through Makoto like that? Hifumi? Even Yasuhiro? Probably not. Mondo must have been exceptionally easy to read.

Or perhaps not, as Kiyotaka was promptly blindsided by his next action. He hadn’t even noticed the pool table when they walked in, but there was Mondo, pulling the billiard ball from his pocket and about about to place it amongst the others on the table.

“What are you doing?” Kiyotaka asked in disbelief. “Tidiness may be one of my prized qualities, but we are on the run for our lives! And how did you know to pick it up back there? If…you even knew at all…” He was lost.

“I didn’t know. Just seems like the thing to do.”

Kiyotaka furrowed his eyebrows. “ _How_ can that seem like the thing to do? Do you even pay attention to the thoughts that go through your brain?”

“No, ‘cause I’m fucking stupid.” Mondo slammed the ball down. “Thought everyone knew that.” He turned to leave the room.

Kiyotaka ran after him. “That is not true! You are a very straight-forward, practical man. You never do things without a reason. That’s one of the things I admire about you! That’s why I’m so confused!”

Mondo slowed his pace slightly, but he said nothing.

“You’re still the most rational person here.” That was the closest Kiyotaka could come to admitting how comforting he was. It wasn’t pride that stopped him, but the knowledge that putting that pressure on Mondo would be inexcusable.

“If you say so.” Was his voice softer? Perhaps. But Kiyotaka couldn’t be sure, for his reading of even Mondo had definite limits.

– – –

Throughout their winding, aimless path, Mondo continued to rearrange their surroundings here and there. Kiyotaka had given up saying anything about it. As strange phenomena went in this place, this was positively benign. Yes, it _was_ perturbing when Mondo somehow found a stuffed dog and Kiyotaka could’ve sworn he heard a faint barking sound when he picked it up, but did he have the energy to do anything about it? No.

Just when Mondo had managed to go a while without picking up anything else, he muttered something under his breath, which Kiyotaka couldn’t make out except for the word “…cold…”. This wouldn’t be worth noting if not for the fact that the hall they were in was unpleasantly warm. Objectively. And even if it hadn’t been, Mondo was far from being a temperature-sensitive individual. Still not a big deal, put into perspective, but it was yet another unanswered question to eat away at him.

Then there were the ghosts, whose auras felt as if they were literally eating away at him. Not only were the usual unidentifiable suspects back, but he was pretty sure he caught a glimpse of flames and lace around a corner. How had she followed them _this_ far?

He heard Mondo gasp. Oh dear, was Chihiro back as well? Or no…Daiya, even?

But when Kiyotaka turned it was only one of those random girls he had kept seeing early on in this ordeal.

Or…not random to Mondo. “ _Yuki?!_ ”

Kiyotaka stared at him. “You _know_ her?”

“Well, yeah!” Mondo said. “I…” He trailed off. “I…uh…asked her out in middle school.”

“ _What_?!” Kiyotaka was appalled for several reasons. First, and most obviously, it was bizarre that such a person was making an appearance as a ghost in a decaying American metropolis. Secondly, there was something disorienting about the idea that Mondo had ever dated anybody. Thirdly, Kiyotaka couldn’t believe what he found himself saying next: “What did she say?”

“…She ran away crying,” Mondo admitted shortly. “I was _kinda_ yelling at the time.”

This information was simultaneously an enormous relief and intensely infuriating, and Kiyotaka personally couldn’t fathom why he felt either. Mondo’s simple revelations ought not to be leaving his mind spinning to the extent that they had. Yet there was his mind. Spinning.

In the middle of a hellish, spectre-infested hallway. He had better stop doing that. He grabbed Mondo’s hand emphatically and they ran. Priorities.

– – –

“You don’t recognize any of the other ghosts, do you?” Kiyotaka dared to ask once they’d gotten to safety.

“Possibly,” Mondo muttered. “There might have been a chick from freshman year too.”

“I can’t see why they would possibly be here.” Kiyotaka’s monotone was forced. “Things have stopped making any kind of sense.”

“I think I get it, actually.”

Kiyotaka frowned in confusion. “You do?”

“It’s simple, ain’t it?” Mondo eyed the wall. “Whatever would get under our skin the most, whatever would fuck us up the worst, that’s exactly what ends up happenin’. How? Hell if I know. But why is kinda obvious.”

“You’re…right.” Kiyotaka took a deep breath. “Exactly right. _Exactly right!_ ” He was now aspirating every consonant. “And you know what, bro?! Men like us cannot lose to such low tactics! With enough headstrong effort, we can find whoever’s behind this and give him a piece of our minds!”

He felt a hand clap his upper back.

The silence that followed was surprisingly peaceful given where they were.

No, no, they had to move again! The idea of letting this newfound motivation fizzle into nothingness was terrifying. Kiyotaka needed to utilize it, and utilize it fast. “Through that door!” he declared, pointing at one randomly.

It wasn’t until he had his hand on the knob that Mondo said “That was nice, you know?”

“What?”

“You…ain’t talked like that in too long.”

“Haven’t I…” Kiyotaka said quietly. No. “Haven’t I?! Well, I wouldn’t be too sure! Pay closer attention!” He flung the door open.

He realized his mistake the instant he stepped in. This room was not like the others. There was something truly ominous about the gaping pit in the center that left no recourse but to walk around the edges, the visceral-looking wicker that made up the walls, and oh yes, the hulking humanoids dangling from frames of flesh that were lowering towards them.

Kiyotaka just barely dodged a slash from one of them, upon which he realized where he’d seen them before. The escalator. That bit of redundant machinery he’d cursed at the time in his naïve lack of perspective and ignorance of what lay ahead.

Actually, never mind that, he thought as he called a warning to Mondo. There was no situation so dire that it didn’t allow for the criticism of society’s flawed infrastructure.

Mondo had followed him in anyway, and the door – it had sealed shut behind them on its own. Kiyotaka had long since dropped every weapon he’d had with him.

“We…can overcome this!” he yelled over the ear-splitting noises the creatures’ movements were filling the room with. “I _refuse_ to be stopped in my tracks by a pack of, er, escalator demons, and I – !”

Everything came to a shuddering standstill. The creatures slumped over in unison, and blood gushed from identical head wounds. Mondo withdrew his shaking, gore-covered fist from the skull of the one nearest.

“Wasn’t expecting that to do in _all_ of them,” he said faintly.

The door on the other end of the room unlocked with a click, but all of a sudden Kiyotaka had priorities above moving forward. “Are you hurt?! You shouldn’t have had to do that! This is my fault! Why must you be so reckless?” He rattled off one sentence after the next as none of them seemed adequate. Mondo seemed physically fine, at least, he realized upon cursory examination. “I do hope we find a place soon where you can wash off your hand.”

Mondo wiped his hand on the wall, which didn’t do much. “Only you’d care about somethin’ like that.” He did not sound resentful.

“Listen!” Kiyotaka led him around the perimeter of the room towards the unlocked door. “Going around with brains on your hand is not good for you!” He turned the handle. “Not good at _all_!”


	17. Return to the Academy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's still alive. I managed to focus on this long enough to get another chapter out for Ishimaru's birthday. I think this is my longest break yet? I wish I could promise it won't be just as long next time.  
> There is a DRV3 character in this chapter, just because he belongs in Silent Hill but I will not allow myself to write a whole new crossover fic for him yet. I went out of my way not to spoil anything, so that shouldn't be a problem. I just realized his name is never mentioned, but I think we all know who it is.

Ah, that stairwell again! By now, there were barely any walls at all and it was approaching pitch blackness. It was a dead void that swallowed up all light and sound and movement. In a way it was less disturbing than the surreal corpse-littered landscape it had been before, and in another way it was infinitely worse.

No, wait… There were still things there. Twitching slightly in the shadows. Impossible to make out. The path they were on was stained with blood. Statements like this that beginning to feel like cold, objective facts. Not nightmarish at all. Just the way things were.

The stairs stopped. Not over the void, but over a floor. The _ground_ floor. So this was it. They could sink no lower.

Across the dirt and dust and fractured tiling, across this “floor” that was no doubt ruining his boots at that very moment, was a door. It didn’t look like it could possibly lead anywhere, since the wall around it had decayed and there was clearly yet more dark stairwell beyond, but it _was_ there. He had walked into it however many nights ago – last night? Ridiculous – and it, unlike everything else, had not changed.

The door had a placard which read “Mondo Owada”, right below a simple stylized illustration of the same man.

“Hey,” Mondo said. “It’s my room.”

So it was. Were they to go in it? Was that even possible, if Kiyotaka had never left it? _Had_ he ever left it?

These questions stayed his hand, but they did not stay Mondo’s. He limped forward and turned the doorknob. Slowly, silently, it opened, and behind it…

It was the sight Kiyotaka had seen that night. Exactly the same. The room was unchanged. It brought back too many emotions, none of which he verbalized.

“Kinda anticlimactic,” Mondo muttered, taking his first step inside. Of course, he had no idea.

After Kiyotaka had closed the door behind them, they stood in silence. It wasn’t exactly the same, he began to realize. The sight was, certainly, but it was cold. A lot colder than it had been that night. It wasn’t a healthy temperature for a school’s dorm to be at _all_. He’d have to make a complai– Oh, right. Never mind.

He had, in the midst of these thoughts, unconsciously began to pace, and while noticing that, he noticed something else: there was an unfamiliar book lying on the floor, behind Mondo’s bed. It wasn’t the same one that had been on the floor at the start of this saga.

Kiyotaka picked it up, opened it, and got as far as _There were once two friends, bonded by their experience in a sauna, who_ before methodically ripping it into strips like he was a mechanical shredder.

“Whoa, the fuck are you doin’?” Mondo asked, sounding extremely surprised.

“Tidying up,” Kiyotaka replied shortly, dumping the strips in the trash bin.

Mondo appeared to gather a lot of courage before venturing: “What…did it say?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea, but I do not have the energy for it.”

“Well, guess I can understand _that_ ,” Mondo mumbled.

With that wrapped up, Kiyotaka began to wonder: where did they go from here? Physically. From this room. There was nothing else in it, and no intuition pulling him towards anywhere else either. Was this a dead end? Were they to go back? Or…was it all finally over now?

“Ku.” A chill ran down Kiyotaka’s spine. “Ku.” Something changed in the reflection on the blank monitor across from him. “ _Ku_.” He turned around.

Here was a very noticeable difference from the Mondo’s room of before. Right in the center of the room, bound with, and hanging upside-down from the ceiling by, a thick rope, was a figure that absolutely had not been there five seconds ago. He was wearing a school uniform Kiyotaka didn’t recognize, half-covering his face with a mask which wouldn’t have looked _that_ strange were it not for the prominent zipper on it, and had long dark hair that trailed along the ground because the ceiling was not that high.

“Who the hell’re _you_?!” Mondo demanded once he was done screaming.

“Ah.” The figure shifted, causing the rope to swing slightly. “Wonderful Question.”

Kiyotaka did not enjoy his voice at all. “How did you get here?” was _his_ question, since Mondo’s didn’t seem like it was going to be answered.

“The same way you Did.”

Kiyotaka frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“Kukuku!” There was only that ghastly, choking laugh again, now at a higher tempo. The rope swung back and forth, this time more vigorously. “This is not my Story,” he said, when the rope had stilled. “I am here to talk about Him.”

“…Him who?” Mondo was glaring at the figure with the utmost suspicion.

“Kiyondo Ishida.”

Ah.

“Or rather, as it is his real name, Kiyotaka Ishimaru.”

_Ah._

“ _Wrong!_ ” Mondo sounded quite agitated. “Kiyotaka Ishimaru is standin’ right _there_!”

The figure’s eyes focused on him. It was hard to tell upside down and with the rest of his face covered, but he looked disdainful. “You really think that in a realm like this a man cannot be in two places at Once?”

Mondo was beginning to turn red with anger. “He goddamn near well killed me! Taka’d never do that!”

“I’m getting to That. Please be Patient.”

Mondo was a lot of wonderful things, but “patient” was not one of them. “Could you just fuck off?! It’s not like we’re gonna believe anything some creepy asshole hangin’ from the ceiling tells us anyway!”

“I speak only the Truth.”

Before Kiyotaka could stop him, Mondo lunged forward. His clenched fist rammed right into the figure’s solar plexus, and then all the way through it. There was no resistance, and he almost fell over before pulling back. The figure was unharmed.

“You’re going to break your other arm!” Kiyotaka exclaimed, grabbing the wrist of the arm in question. “Don’t do that!”

Mondo just glowered.

“Now, may I resume Speaking?” Encountering no further direct resistance, that was what the figure did. “After the death of Mondo Owada, the majority of Kiyotaka’s feelings on that subject split off into a separate Consciousness.”

Had they really? Could he access only a small percentage of his emotions, then? If that were true, Kiyotaka couldn’t even begin to imagine how he would have felt otherwise. He was by far emotional enough.

“That separate consciousness holds most of the anger towards himself and his classmates, most of his Despair.”

This was profoundly uncomfortable with both of them standing right there, and Kiyotaka wanted to say something, but, as hard as he tried, nothing came to mind.

“That consciousness wandered about this realm, learning of a ritual–a ritual that would revive the Dead. …Kukuku. Such a thing is impossible, of Course.”

“But _I’m_ dead and I’m standin’ right here,” Mondo pointed out.

“Those two clauses are Unrelated,” the figure said, more cryptically than ever. “And that was an…editorial on my Part. I Apologize. What’s relevant is that he _believes_ it to be Possible. He believes that with the deaths of twenty-one, Mondo will come Back.”

“That’s obviously bullshit,” Mondo scoffed. “He tried to kill _me_. We’ve been over this so many times.”

“He believes he must kill you in order for you to be alive Again.”

“I am not following this at all!” Kiyotaka was beginning to get a headache.

“Really?” The figure cocked an eyebrow. It looked quite ridiculous. “I understand perfectly, and I am not even the one Involved. Nevertheless, whether you understand it or not, that is what he is Doing. He has completed nineteen already, and his final targets are the two of You.”

“Me?! But isn’t that suicide?!” Kiyotaka exclaimed.

“Absolutely. He doesn’t know if he himself will survive It. But that does not matter to Him.”

Despite appearing shaken by all this news, Mondo still loudly demanded, “How do ya _know_ all this?!”

“I have my Sources,” the figure replied simply.

“…Hang on.” All of this was struggling to fit into place in Kiyotaka’s mind. “What about that child?”

“Child? What Child?” This was the first time the figure had asked a question of his own. “Well, I imagine it represents something about You. About Him. Some deep trauma or Insecurity. I could not explain What.”

Kiyotaka stared at him incredulously, lost for words at this sudden end to the seemingly endless well of knowledge the figure possessed.

“Anyway, that was my Explanation.” The figure closed his eyes. “Now it is time for my honest suggestion: kill Him.”

“Based on what you were just saying, couldn’t that also kill me?” Kiyotaka pointed out.

“Kill Him.”

“ _How?_ ” Mondo asked.

“Kill Him.”

“Really!” Kiyotaka ran a hand through his short hair in agitation. “I’m not sure that–“

“ _Kill Him._ ”

And then the figure was gone. The rope was gone. The ceiling was empty, and there was no sign it had ever been otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept feeling bad about the blatant barely integrated exposition, but then I'd remember "oh yeah...that's exactly what happened in Silent Hill 4". If they can have a man drop down from the ceiling to explain the plot, so can I.  
> Skipping all the Joseph notes throughout this fic turned out to be fortuitous, as otherwise this could not have happened. But now I'm tempted to revise the whole thing to have Korekiyo notes pop up throughout. I will resist the urge until this is actually over.


End file.
